This evening of screenings followed by a discussion with the filmmakers was presented by Silk Road Rising and the Chicago Palestine Film Festival.
Program:
The Imam and the Homosexual (16 min) Written and Directed by Jamil Khoury
The Imam and The Homosexual probes the “strange bedfellows” political alliance between Imam Mustafa Khan (played by Khurram Mozaffar), spiritual leader of a besieged Naperville, IL mosque, and Carl Baker (played by Nicholas Cimino), the gay son of the imam’s chief nemesis. As Imam Mustafa struggles to reconcile his support for civil rights with his religious and cultural objections to homosexuality, Carl imagines the Muslim and LGBT communities uniting against their common enemies.
City of Borders (66 min) Directed by Yun Suh
In the heart of Jerusalem stands an unusual symbol of unity that defies generations of segregation, violence and prejudice: a gay bar called Shushan. City of Borders goes inside this vibrant underground sanctuary on the East/West border of the Holy City, where people of opposing nationalities, religions and sexual orientations create a community among people typically viewed as each other’s “enemy.”
City of Borders follows the daily lives of the Israeli bar owner and four Israeli and Palestinian patrons as they navigate the minefield of politics, religion and discrimination to live and love openly. Set against the construction of the separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories and the struggle for a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, these four inter-woven stories reveal the contradictions and complexity of the struggle for acceptance.
