Film Series on Muslim Women Starts Feb. 15
Beginning Feb. 15, a series of films that focuses on the lives of Muslim women will be held on four Wednesday evenings during spring semester.
The screenings are free and open to the campus community, and will be shown from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Founders Gallery. The series is part of Assistant Professor DIYA ABDO’s IDS 485 class “Arab and Islamic Feminisms,” and students will introduce each film and moderate a discussion afterwards. The schedule runs:
Feb. 15, They Call Me Muslim (2006, 27 minutes) – In popular Western imagination, a Muslim woman in a veil, or hijab, is a symbol of Islamic oppression. But what does it mean for women’s freedom when a democratic country forbids the wearing of the veil? In this provocative documentary, filmmaker Diana Ferrero portrays the struggle of two women – one in France and one in Iran – to express themselves freely.
Feb. 29, Women Like Us (2002, 60 minutes) – Filmmaker Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri returns to Iran after 20 years as an expatriate to present this intimate and revealing portrait of five ordinary Iranian women: a nurse, a journalist, a rice farmer, a religious college graduate and a piano teacher. Against a backdrop of Islam, revolution and war, they share their views on the veil, the relationship of Iranian women to the West and the long-ranging impacts of the 1979 Revolution on the status of women in their country.
March 21, My Home, Your War (2006, 52 minutes) – The film offers an extraordinary look at the effect of the Iraq war through the eyes of an ordinary Iraqi woman. Shot in Baghdad over three years that span the time before, during and after the invasion of Iraq, this profoundly moving film brings a perspective that – until now – has rarely been available to U.S. audiences.
April 4, That Paradise Will Be Mine (2005, 54 minutes) – Why would a woman in one of the most liberal Western European countries choose to become a Muslim and faithfully follow the demands of her new conviction, including wearing the veil? This eye-opening film follows the lives of three women dealing with the consequences of their choices to convert to Islam.
For more information about the series, contact Abdo at 316-2214 or abdod@guilford.edu.
