Saleh Bakri | www.jaredmobarak.com

TIFF21 REVIEW: Costa Brava, Lebanon [2022]

2021/09/162022/11/27 Jared Mobarak

I flushed hope down the toilet long ago. What can you do when your homeland is falling apart? The easy answer is stay or leave, but both options carry too much complexity to simply choose and be done. For starters, not everyone has that choice whether due to finances, family, or a myriad other possible reasons. And those who are able must dig deep within themselves to rationalize why. Do you leave because of greater opportunity? Do you stay because you want to be part of the solution? Or do…

REVIEW:The Present [2021]

2021/03/232021/03/31 Jared Mobarak

I have my daughter with me. It’s easy for oppressive regimes to call their opposition terrorists when they have all the control. Wherever you may reside (look at the difference in rhetoric between how the American GOP described BLM protestors during the summer and white insurrectionists during the winter), power always breeds injustice. And it isn’t simply through action either. Some of the worst cases of exploitation and discrimination occur through inaction thanks to rules and regulations that allow humanity to be removed from the equation altogether. That’s why their…

TIFF11 INTERVIEW: Annemarie Jacir, writer/director of When I Saw You

2012/09/092020/03/21 Jared Mobarak

While at the Toronto International Film Festival I had the pleasure of sitting down for a chat with Palestinian-born writer/director Annemarie Jacir about her sophomore effort When I Saw You. With the World Premiere a mere hour away, one could see the excitement and passion she had for the film and the North American stage it would be debuting on. Already with a Foreign Language Oscar selection from her native country for 2008’s Salt of This Sea, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this new film meeting the same fate.…

TIFF12 REVIEW: لما شفتك [When I Saw You] [2013]

2012/09/012014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“You’re suffocating me” Leave it to writer/director Annemarie Jacir to make an American more or less indoctrinated to side with the Israelis in the war for the Holy Land see her people’s freedom fighters (fadayee) in a sympathetic light. The first ever female Palestinian director—her debut feature Salt of This Sea was the region’s 2008 Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film—Jacir introduces us to the Harir Refugee Camp of 1967 Jordan through the eyes of an innocent. Young Tarek (Mahmoud Asfa) knows nothing about the fight raging or the…