Institute Film Series: Two Films from Sara Ishaq

From The Banned Countries: a film series curated by the School of Social Science and the School of Historical Studies

The film series continues in December with a screening of two Yemeni films from award winning Canadian/Yemeni filmmaker Sara Ishaq. The first, Karama Has No Walls, (2012, 26 minutes) was nominated for an Academy Award in the Short Subject category. The film is an eyewitness account of Yemen’s revolution in 2011 that began with a peaceful protest against (now former) President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Friday of Karama, March 18, 2011, saw an end to the peaceful protest.

The second film, The Mulberry House (2013, 65 minutes) was also shot in Yemen during the revolution. It has been screened at the Muher Competition in Dubai International Film Festival and was an official selection of the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2013. Sara Ishaq, born and raised in Yemen, moved with her Scottish mother to Scotland when she was 17. She returned ten years later to Yemen with a desire to explore and film her homeland only to encounter the Yemeni Arab Spring.

The films will be shown at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 in Wolfensohn Hall, at the Institute for Advanced Study. The two screenings will be followed by a discussion with Professor Steven Caton, Khalid Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies from Harvard University, who previously was a Member in the School of Social Science. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.