Film Collection
I set up a showcase page on Vimeo and added some recent work and older films, including my first documentary Nice Bombs about my trip back to Iraq in 2004. Click here https://vimeo.com/showcase/usama
News
The Desire will have a physical screening in Australia
Our film The Desire will have a physical screening at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival 2020 in Australia. Click here for info:
https://www.revelationfilmfest.org/film-information-new.php?filmId=1112
Dandelion Movie on xviix.com
Many years ago I made a short video with my daughter Muneera. I describe it this way: One take with no editing or music. A natural cinematic experience is created and seen: a moment alone with dandelions, a struggle for the camera, a shift from father to daughter in point of view and philosophy.
Curators Jamie Jenkinson and Amy Dickson are featuring Dandelion Movie with other works as part of their program present(s) on xviix.com
How can the present be valued/prioritised/lived in creative practice? present(s) is a selection of videos that appear to favour this temporality, featuring: Zara Joan Miller, … Read the rest
The Desire premieres at the 27th Chicago Underground Film Festival
We are proud to announce that our film The Desire is an official selection at the 27th Chicago Underground Film Festival. Single tickets start at $10 and the full program can be found here: https://watch.eventive.org/cuff. Ticket prices go up after Halloween so snag one sooner rather than later.
Watch here: The Desire (by Talia Watrous and Usama Alshaibi) plays November 22nd for Shorts Program 14
American Arab playing October 5th
This film program is part of the annual Arab Festival in Washington, supported and led by the Rachel Corrie Foundation.
Cinema-19 in Filmmaker Magazine
In the brisk, 43-minute anthology film, Cinema-19, a group of experimental filmmakers respond to the coronavirus pandemic with diverse and imaginative results. The films are all 190 seconds long and, say the curator/organizers, filmmakers Usama Alshaibi and Adam Sekuler, “do not attempt to summarize the pandemic, but instead focus on the personal, the political, the sensual, the distant, the abstract, and the absurd.”
Read more
Westword Magazine on CINEMA-19
“At some point in the middle of summer, with protests against police brutality and the conflicts on the streets in the United States, we questioned if we even needed a film program like this,” admits Alshaibi. “But I believe we do need artistic expressions and documentation during a historical time like ours. There is no singular narrative of what we are going through, but we are definitely going through a transformation collectively — and all these films are trying to make sense of our strange and dark days. In the end, I think there is hope…there has to be.”
Read … Read the rest
Cinema-19 Streaming
Filmmakers Respond to COVID-19
Presented in Association with
Anthology Film Archives
Northwest Film Forum
Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge
Filmmakers In Order of Appearance:
Courtney Stephens
Kalpana Subramanian
Usama Alshaibi
Scott Cummings
Lori Felker
Matt McCormick
Eman Akram Nader & Alex Megaro
Christin Turner
Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa
Kelly Gallagher
Sarah Ema Friedland
William Brown & Mila Zuo
Amir George
Adam Sekuler