“Films are the last chance we have to understand what we as human beings have in common,” says Tribeca Film Festival’s artistic director Peter Scarlet. Which is exactly why Tribeca is funding, and has in past years, so many films about and from the Muslim population.
19 films are being shown this year on the subject, making up about 10 percent of the entire festival showings. And since Tribeca was created specifically because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to help Manhattan’s economy, some people are perplexed by this decision. Some Americans are still blindsided and wounded by the event that they can’t bring themselves to think outside the box. One journalist even asked Scarlet if Tribeca would continue to fund films “from the people who brought us 9/11.”
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These comments upset the artistic director, only proving that as big and rich of a country as America may be, its citizens know very little about the world they’re surrounded by. “The real function of a film festival is to open our windows, open our eyes and open our minds,” Scarlet said. And due to an unfortunately bias news media, international films may be our only chance to see how people from other countries live, dress, look, and learn about their culture from their perspective, not CNN’s.
Of course America isn’t the only place these bias perspectives occur. One of the films featured at the event called Head Wind shows Iranians trying to shun government censorship of media and information. Iranian born filmmaker Faramarz K-Rahber from Australia presents “Donkey in Lahore,” about a Muslim woman from a traditional background who falls in love with an Australian artist. Football Under Cover follows a female German soccer team who travel to Iran when they find out women their age aren’t allowed to play the game.
Watching films about or by real people who’ve experienced their country and its laws firsthand, instead of only hearing what their president, or Prime Minister has to say, is the path to true understanding and communication. For this reason, film is the perfect medium to achieve this through, and the Tribeca Film Festival is hoping to help promote this kind of acceptance and knowledge.
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