
A New Day in Old Sana‘a
Bader Ben Hirsi, dir.
2005, Yemen, 86’. Arabic with English subtitles. cd Universe, $18.49 (www.cduniverse.com) Arab Film Distribution, $400 institutional use (www.arabfilm.com).
Yemen’s first feature film is a light-hearted yet message-laden tale of the struggle between true love and tradition. We get to be insiders in women’s spaces and conversations, filmed among the walled gardens, narrow alleyways and latticed tower homes of the old city. The narrator, an Italian photographer, provides a framework for the tale of a stolen wedding dress, a girl dancing alone at night on a dark street and the bumbling police officers who try to solve the crime.
You may also be interested in...
Nomadic Chieftain’s Biography Unveils Dynamics of Colonial Expansion
Historian Tetsu Akiyama challenges the narrative that the Kyrgyz were a “static and monotonous ‘traditional’ society’” destined to be subsumed.Book Dispels Myths Behind Power Relations Shaping Medieval Levant
Historian James Wilson offers assesses the political situation in Syria (Bilad al-Sham) in the decades leading up to the First Crusade.The Ebb and Flow of History on the Zambezi River
In tracing the past six centuries of history, historian Malyn Hewitt captures the cyclical rise and fall of the river and its people.