Alwan for the Arts Presents

The Night Baghdad Fell by Mohamed Amin followed by discussion with the director

Friday, November 3, 2006, 7:30 PM $10

Lerner Hall Cinema, Columbia University

The Night Baghdad Fell, Mohamed Amin, Egypt, 2005, 109 min, 35 mm

Cheeky humor jabs at Egyptian languor and American foreign policy, The Night Baghdad Fell kicks off with the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Throughout Egypt folks are glued to their televisions, paralyzed in shock and gripped with the fear - how much time do they have until the Americans invade Cairo? Shaker, a school headmaster, for one, will not sit and passively watch the desecration of Iraq while waiting for the sack of Cairo. With his eccentric family reluctantly sacrificing their time, marital status and rooftop for Shaker's patriotic schemes, he commissions former genius student, Tarek, who, post-graduation, has taken to nightly sessions at the "Hookah Research Center," to engineer a defense weapon. Affected by the same anxieties and feelings of powerlessness as Shaker, Tarek embraces hashish joints between his sexual fantasies of a certain former National Security Advisor. When Shaker enlists his activist daughter, Salma to wed Tarek, "for the good of Egypt," Tarek, like the other men in the neighborhood, finds he can only make progress, both on the weapons project and in the bedroom, if Salma dons fatigues.

The event is sponsored by Columbia University's Film Department, Middle East Institute, Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures and Turath

Directions: Bus lines (M4, M5, M11, M60, M104) and Subway line 1 local to 116 Street and Broadway MAP

Last updated: 2007-09-20 16:07:22