Arabian Drift | Dir: Tony Lowe | DVD | 50min | 2011 | USA | Farsi, Arabic
Arabian Drift is a collage film devoted to car culture in the Middle East. In the spirit of Tony Lowe and Akiva Saunder's VID WWWORLD series at Spectacle Theater, seemingly disparate media (cell phone footage from file sharing sites, videos found on Arabic language message boards, bootleg Islamic DVDs) provide a clashing narrative stream via visceral editing techniques. Suicidal 'drifting' rallies held in the desert, gold plated sports cars in Dubai, road skating, two wheel SUV ballets and more serve as poetic frames of reference for thinking about the internet, oil, Islam, sexuality and death.
Unclear Holocaust | Dir: The Anti-Banality Union | DVD | 65min | 2011 | USA | Amerikan with some Arabic
When I first heard of Unclear Holocaust, the debut project of nebulous situationist art collective The Anti-Banality Union, my initial impression was that these impious troublemakers would fully deserve the inevitable fatwa that will be vexed upon them. However, after viewing part of the work, which reconstitutes scenes from over 50 Hollywood New York City disaster porn films into a more or less coherent narrative, I am pleased to report it is a rather damning yet thoughtful–and dare I say hilarious and enjoyable?–reminder of how bad Hollywood had pushed this scenario.- Screen Slate
WATCH THE TRAILER
Introduced by Akiva Saunders and Troy Swain of Spectacle Theater.
Q&A following with representatives of Unclear Holocaust.