Oriented / Mondial 2010

Too gay for the village, too Palestinian for the city, too Israeli for the Middle East and too comfortable for the interest of the international media... Oriented follows the lives of three gay Palestinian-Israeli citizens living it up in Tel Aviv as they confront their national and sexual identity in the build up to the Israeli-Gaza conflict of 2014. Oriented follows the lives of three Palestinian friends exploring their national and sexual identity in Tel Aviv during the Israel-Gaza conflict of 2014. Khader is a Tel Aviv 'darling' from a prominent Muslim family living with his Jewish boyfriend, David, a local LGBT nightlife impresario, and their Dalmatian, Otis. Khader is conflicted by his desire for change in the face of a seemingly hopeless situation. Fadi is an ardent Palestinian nationalist confronted by guilt-ridden Jewish love and Naeem must confront his family with the truth about his sexuality. Meanwhile, a war is brewing...Determined to make a change, these three best friends form a non-violent, cultural resistance group (- Qambuta- ) making viral content for gender and national equality. While their work may not change the world, it certainly helps them deal with the frustration of living with multi-faceted identities.

Mondial 2010 is a film on love and place. A Lebanese gay couple decides to take a road trip to Ramallah. The film is recorded with their camera as they chronicle their journey. The viewers are invited through the couple's conversations into the universe of a fading city. Mondial 2010 is a discussion of institutional borders in modern day Middle East. It uses video as an apparatus to transgress boundaries that are inflicted on people in spite of them. It is a travel film in a trajectory that doesn- t allow travel, starring two male lovers, in a setting where homosexuality is a punishable felony. Shot with a hand-held camcorder, Mondial 2010 borrows the aesthetics of a travel video log. It normalizes the abnormal, and by doing so creates its own universe of possibility. It is a shift from the mainstream passive view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that places the victim-oppressor in the forefront of the produced imagery. This video glides over this conflict with an upper hand.