Competition


AL-JAZEERA, ARAB VOICES
AL JAZIRA, DES VOIX ARABES



Country of production: France
Year: 2003
Language: Arabic, English, French, Spanish
Mins: 52

Director: Ali Essafi
Script: Ali Essafi
Cinematography: Isabelle Fermon, Ali Essafi
Editing: Benedicte Mallet
Sound: Mustapha Laghrassi
Producer: Jean-Marie Barbe,
Nicolas Jeanpierre
Production company: Ardeche Images Production
Source: Stéphan Riguet
Andana Films
Le village
07170 Lussas
FRANCE
Phone: +33 4 7594 3467
Fax: +33 4 7594 2509
sriguet@andanafilms.com
www.andanafilms.com


So powerful that the United States government recently started a rival specifically to challenge it, Al-Jazeera is the most popular and respected television station in the Arab world (including far beyond the Middle East). One of the many films flowing directly from the lenses of journalists and filmmakers present at the invasion of Iraq - this festival is also showing WAR FEELS LIKE WAR on the same program, and Chicago Filmmakers recently showed AL-JAZEERA EXCLUSIVE - AL-JAZEERA, ARAB VOICES is a powerful, searching depiction of the journalists who lead the television station. From poetic commentaries to interviews offered in flawless Spanish, French, and English, the staff of Al-Jazeera is revealed as a magnificently trained and dedicated corps of journalists. Attempts to categorize them as pro- or anti-West be damned: this film suggests that Al-Jazeera (which means "the island") is, above all, a voice for truth, modernity, and freedom in the Arab world.

Ali Essafi was born in 1963. He studied psychology, then entered the world of filmmaking. He worked as an assistant director, before directing films on his own. OUARZAZATE MOVIE, co-produced between France and Morocco, was widely screened and praised on the international circuit.

filmography as director
OUARZAZATE MOVIE (2001)
PARIS MOIS PAR MOI (1999)
LE SILENCE DES CHAMPS DE BETTERAVES (1998)
GENERAL, NOUS VOILA (1997)

Thursday 08-Apr-2004 9:00 PM Gallery Theatre
Screening with WAR FEELS LIKE WAR