Loosely based on Hamid Naficy’s concept of “accented cinema” – the filmmaking of various members of Diasporas living in the West – “Accented Video & the Autobiographical” is a program of seven short films by contemporary Canadian artists that investigate the autobiographical through video. Although the diasporic experience and affiliation varies from artist to artist, the videos in this program exhibit related thematic concerns, such as notions of exile, migration, Diaspora and identity.

Featuring work by: Sobhi al-Zobaidi, Jamelie Hassan, Sebnem Ozpeta, Jayce Salloum, Sarah Shamash, and b.h. Yael
Programmed by: Aisha Jamal and Sarah Shamash

Date: April 5, 2012
Location: 167 Logan Ave (at Martha St.)
Doors: 7:00 p.m.
Screening begins: 7:30 p.m.
Duration: approximately 45 minutes, preceded by a talk by Aisha Jamal and Sarah Shamash

Admission: PWYC with all proceeds toward the artists
Image credit: Sarah Shamash, “Ariadne’s Thread”, 2009. Video still.

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Sobhi al-Zobaidi is an independent Palestinian filmmaker, artist and scholar. He made a number of award winning documentaries, short fiction, art videos and multi-media installations. He studied film production and cinema studies at NYU, and since 1998 he has been an active member of the new and independent film movement in the occupied Palestine. He taught film and media at Birzeit and Al-Quds universities, published reviews in both English and Arabic of Palestinian cinema, art and politics. Since the year 2000 he worked as a writer for the Swiss weekly WOZ writing on Palestinian culture and politics. Currently he is working on doctoral research on issues relating to dispossession and memory.

Jamelie Hassan is born in Canada, of Arabic background, and is based in London, Ontario. She is a visual artist and activist and since the 1970s has created a body of work that is intensely driven by an engagement in both local and international politics and cultures. Her interdisciplinary installations, writing and curatorial projects explore personal and public histories. Her works are in major public collections and she is the recipient of numerous awards including the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2001). Hassan’s engagement with film, arguably more than any other medium, demonstrates the importance of community in her practice. A film program curated by Miriam Jordan and Julian Haladyn contextualize her film projects and includes a publication The Films and Videos of Jamelie Hassan edited by Julian Haladyn and Miriam Jordan, with essays by Laura U. Marks and the editors published by Blue Medium Press (2010). A survey exhibition of her work, Jamelie Hassan: At the Far Edge of Words organized by Museum London, London, Ontario and the the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver is circulating nationally (2009-2013), accompanied by a publication (2010).

Aisha Jamal is an independent Toronto-based filmmaker. She is Assistant Professor of German cultural studies at Trent University and a Media Arts Instructor at Sheridan College, Ontario. Born in Kandahar, Afghanistan she moved to Canada at the age of eleven. Jamal spent her high-school years in Vancouver, Canada and moved to Toronto, Canada to complete her PhD in contemporary German cinema. During this time, she shot and directed her first documentary Dolls and Bombs. Since then, she has made several short length films. Currently, she is working on her first video and sound installation with Vancouver-based media artist Sarah Shamash. Her main interest, academically and artistically, lie in conceptual and theoretical issues of migration and Diaspora.

Sebnem Ozpeta is a Vancouver based independent filmmaker / editor. She studied Graphic Design in Turkey, where she was born and raised. She also completed the Digital Film Program at the AI in Vancouver. She has been producing short experimental films and working as an editor/camera operator and collaborating with artists, performers, storytellers, dancers and filmmakers for more than six years.“I believe that everybody has a story and we all want to share our stories. Visual storytelling is only one of them. My projects focus on different aspects of ‘loss’, ‘isolation’, and ‘adaptation’ in cultural diversity.”

Jayce Salloum is an internationally renowned media artist, cultural activist and curator. He has lectured pervasively and has exhibited his videotapes, installations and photographs at the widest range of local and worldwide venues possible. The grandson of Lebanese immigrants, he was born and raised in Canada, went to art school in the US, and in 1978 commenced exhibiting his productive and many-sided oeuvre. Salloum’s work is found within and between the very personal, quotidian, local and the trans-national. It engages in an intimate subjectivity and discursive challenge. He moved to Vancouver in 1977 and has been based there ever since.

Sarah Shamash is a media artist working in documentary, film, installation, video, web and mobile medias. Born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1977, Shamash completed a BA in Film Production at the University of British Columbia. She moved to Paris in 2001, where she lived, worked and studied for five years; completing an MA in Cinema, and an MFA in Fine Arts at Paris VIII, University of Saint Denis. While in Paris she began exhibiting her work in art venues and film festivals while pursuing her creative production at artist residencies, including Vancouver, Toronto, Banff, Salvador (Brazil), Sao Paulo and most recently in Amman, Jordan. Informed by cinema, her research and process based practice engages socio and psycho geographies through the exploration of specific places, people and mapping strategies that convey personal and experiential knowledge through everyday life. As a recipient of the Vancouver city live/ work studio award for 2012 – 2015, she is currently based in Vancouver, Canada.

b.h. Yael is a Toronto based video and installation artist. She is Professor of Integrated Media at OCAD University. Yael has received many arts awards including a Chalmers Fellowship Award. Yael’s work has exhibited nationally and internationally and has shown in various settings, from festivals to galleries to various educational venues. Yael’s work, such as Fresh Blood, A Consideration of Belonging has dealt with the many intersections of identity while at the same time addressing the fragmentary nature of memory and belonging, including its racialized aspects within Jewish culture. Palestine Trilogy is comprised of three videos that focus on Palestinian dispossession and the repercussions of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and lives. Trading the Future addresses apocalypse and environmental issues and won the ‘Audience Award’ at the Ecofilms festival in Rhodes, Greece. Yael has worked in collaboration with Johanna Householder on the Approximations series and in a number of artist collectives.