Let’s Stay Together
Mondays can be a drag… so why not start your week off right? Here’s an acoustic cover of “Let’s Stay Together,” the Al Green classic, performed by Bassel Al-Madani. We shot this last week in our home studio:
Bassel and the Supernaturals are performing at Chicago’s Subterranean this Saturday, January 15th. We’ll be doing a live concert video and I’ll join them for a few tunes, including a full band version of this song. Hope you enjoy the video, and we’ll see you at the show!
-Rami
Reel 2011
Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a great holiday season.
We just finished a new demo reel showing some of our work from 2010, in four major content areas: live event, web-based video, documentary, and narrative. It will be up on our website soon. Thanks for checking it out, hope you enjoy!
Are you Reddi for the holidays? And more
Everyone loves to load up on sweets during the holidays. But this year, please enjoy ReddiWip responsibly:
Art Direction/Copy: Ryan Gast | Shooting/Editing: Remsy Atassi | Original Music: Rami Atassi
We’re not affiliated with ReddiWip in any way. We just love the stuff and wanted to have some fun with it. And clearly Ryan was very hungry (that’s him in the video).
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In other news, we’re about to do some shooting for our project, “Empire’s Sky: A Chicago Documentary.” Empire’s Sky is our exploration of how current economic conditions are affecting people’s lives in the diverse city of Chicago. If that sounds a bit general, or you’d like to learn more, download our 2-page brief. And if you’re a Chicagoan interested in getting involved, reach out to us – we’d love to hear from you.
One group of Chicagoans we’ll be profiling is small businesses and their owners. This Friday, we’ll be shooting at Metropolis Coffee in the Rogers Park/Edgewater neighborhood. If you live in Chicago, you probably know that Metropolis makes some of the best coffee around, and they’re also a prominent local business.
We’ll keep you posted, and while the completed documentary is about a year away, we’re putting together a short profile video of Metropolis. It will be up here and on our website in early 2011.
Finally, for anyone interested in the progress of Boxer, I’m making a post tomorrow (or maybe Thursday) about the festivals we’re submitting to in Jan-March 2011. For filmmakers with a limited festival budget (like us), this will also include a discussion of how to get the most out of Withoutabox by using some simple tools to collect and sort data on film festivals.
- Rami
A freezing day outside the studio
Here’s a new 1-minute winter video we shot on a very cold day outside our studio. Set to a little original music:
We met a very friendly man who talked to us about the economy. Look for more short videos from around Chicago, especially concerning the economy, as we start the early stages of our next project – Empire’s Sky: A Chicago Documentary.
In other news here we are very close to completing our Boxer film festival submission schedule for Jan-March 2011. I’ll be making a detailed post soon that will cover our basic strategy and approach to this process.
Also, for Chicagoans interested in Media, Marketing, and Advertising, there’s a MeetUp Event for Chicago Marketing tonight, 6:30 PM at Yak-Zies in Wrigleyville. The topic is mobile media. If you haven’t heard of MeetUp, it’s worth checking out: a great way to connect, meet up (ha-ha), and network with people who share your interests.
Finally, if you have some extra time this week(end), I suggest checking out Benedict Carey’s awesome article on the brain and creative problem solving. In it, Marcel Denesi, an anthropology professor at University of Toronto, discusses puzzle-solving: “It’s all about you, using your own mind, without any method or schema, to restore order from chaos.” She’s talking about crossword puzzles and sudoko. But as an avid chess player, I’m always going on (and on) about the creative element of chess and how a beautiful chess game is not unlike a collaborative artwork – albeit a little more competitive. Check out the article if you can, it’s more focused and better researched than my musings about the Queen’s Gambit.
-Rami
Stand-up Comedy from Sam Evans
Yesterday I got back from a much needed break with friends and family in my hometown of Toledo, OH. One of the reasons I love visiting Ohio – swamps and smog notwithstanding – is that I get to reconnect with the old friends I grew up with. Almost all of us are involved in the arts, in one way or another.
So I thought I’d share this clip of my good friend Sam Evans, a stand-up comedian in Cincinnati, OH. I’ve had the pleasure to see Sam do a few open mics, and he’s always a riot. This is his take on working in the service industry – something most artists (and entrepreneurs, too) have experienced at sometime or another.
To see more of Sam’s work, check out his profile on Rooftop Comedy or catch one of his shows in Cincinnati!
p.s. It’s stand-up, naturally there’s a little cursing, so it may be NSFW depending on where you work…
Freedom for Artists, Freedom of Thought!
“History testifies that an artist’s mind is the analytical mind of his society… How can anyone be accused of any crime because of his mind and what passes through the mind?”
-Jafar Panahi, director of “Offside” and “The White Balloon
Filmmaking can be a difficult, trying, and sometimes frustrating challenge. But if I’m ever feeling discouraged about film – or any art, or anything, for that matter – I can always find inspiration in artists who create despite the tremendous difficulty of their circumstances.
Jafar Panahi, an Iranian filmmaker, is one such artist. Earlier this year he was arrested for making “anti-state” films in Iran. This moving piece is the closing statement from his trial. Thanks to Ted Hope’s blog and NY Times’ The Lede Blog for posting it first.
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Your Honor, I would like to present my defense in two parts.
Part 1: What they say.
In the past few days I have been watching my favorite films again, though I did not have access to some of them, which are among the greatest films of the history of cinema. My house was raided on the night of March 1, 2010 while my colleague Mr. Rasoulof and I were in the process of shooting what we intended to be a socially conscious art-house film. The people, who identified themselves as agents of the Ministry of Intelligence, arrested us along with other crew members without presenting any warrants. They confiscated my collection of films as well and never returned them to me. Subsequently, the only reference made to those films was by the prosecutor in charge of my case, who asked me: “What are these obscene films you’re collecting?”
I have learned how to make films inspired by those outstanding films that the prosecutor deemed obscene. Believe me I have just as much difficulty understanding how they could be called obscene as I do comprehending how the activity for which I was arrested could be seen as a crime. My case is a perfect example of being punished before committing a crime. You are putting me on trial for making a film that, at the time of our arrest, was only thirty percent shot. You must have heard that the famous creed, “There is no god, except Allah,” turns into blasphemy if you only say the first part and omit the second part. In the same vein, how can you establish that a crime has been committed by looking at 30 percent of the rushes for a film that has not been edited yet?
I do not comprehend the charge of obscenity directed at the classics of film history, nor do I understand the crime I am accused of. If these charges are true, you are putting not only us on trial but the socially conscious, humanistic, and artistic Iranian cinema as well, a cinema which tries to stay beyond good and evil, a cinema that does not judge or surrender to power or money but tries to honestly reflect a realistic image of the society.
One of the charges against me is attempting to encourage demonstrations and incite protests with this film. All through my career I have emphasized that I am a socially committed filmmaker not a political one. My main concerns are social issues; therefore my films are social dramas not political statements. I never wanted to act as a judge or a prosecutor. I am not a filmmaker who judges but one who invites other to see. I don’t get to decide for others or to write any kind of manual for anybody; please allow me to repeat my [intention] to place my cinema beyond good and evil. This kind of belief has caused my colleagues and myself a lot of trouble; many of my films have been banned, along with the films of other filmmakers like me. But it is unprecedented in Iranian cinema to arrest and imprison a filmmaker for making a film, and harass his family while he is in prison. This is a new development in the history of Iranian cinema that will be remembered for a long time.
I have been accused of participating in demonstrations. No Iranian filmmaker was allowed to use his camera to capture the events but you can not forbid an artist to observe! As an artist it is my responsibility to observes in order to get inspired and create. I was an observer, and it was my right to observe.
I have been accused of making a film without permission. Is it really necessary to point out here that no law has been passed by the parliament regarding the need for a permit to make a film? There are only some internal memos which are going through changes each time the deputy minister is changed.
I have been accused of not giving a script to the actors. In our filmmaking genre where we work mostly with non-professional actors, this is a very routine way of filmmaking practiced by myself and many of my colleagues; the cast mostly consists of non-actors. Therefore, the director does not find it necessary to give them a script. This accusation sounds more like a joke that has no place in the judiciary system.
I have been accused of having signed a declaration. I have singed one: an open letter signed by 37 prominent film makers, in order to express their concern about the turn of events in the country. I was one of them. Unfortunately, instead of listening to the concerns, we were accused of treachery. However, these filmmakers are the very same people who have expressed their concerns in the past about injustices around the world. How can you expect them to remain indifferent to the fate of their own country?
I have been accused of organizing demonstrations at the opening of Montreal Film Festival. At least some truth and fairness should back up any accusations. I was the chair of the jury in Montreal and arrived only a few hours before the opening. How could I have organized a demonstration in a place where I hardly knew anyone? Let’s not forget that in those days the Iranian Diaspora would gather at any relevant event around the world to voice their demands.
I have been accused of giving interviews to Persian-speaking media abroad. I know for fact that there are no laws forbidding us from giving interviews.
Part 2: What I say.
History testifies that an artist’s mind is the analytical mind of his society. By learning about the culture and history of his country, by observing the events that occur in his surroundings, he sees, analyzes and presents issues of the day through his art form to the society.
How can anyone be accused of any crime because of his mind and what passes through the mind?
The assassination of ideas and sterilizing artists of a society has only one result: killing the roots of art and creativity. Arresting my colleagues and I while shooting an unfinished film is nothing but an attack by those in power on all the artists of this land. It drives this crystal clear however sad message home: “You will repent if you don’t think like us.”
I would like to remind the court of yet an other ironic fact about my imprisonment: the space given to Jafar Panahi’s festival awards in Tehran’s Museum of Cinema is much larger than his cell in prison.
All said, despite all the injustice done to me, I, Jafar Panahi, declare once again that I am an Iranian, I am staying in my country and I like to work in my own country. I love my country, I have paid a price for this love too, and I am willing to pay again if necessary. I have yet another declaration to add to the first one. As shown in my films, I declare that I believe in the right of “the other” to be different, I believe in mutual understanding and respect, as well as in tolerance; the tolerance that forbid me from judgment and hatred. I don’t hate anybody, not even my interrogators.
I recognize my responsibilities toward the future generations that will inherit this country from us.
History is patient. Insignificant stories happen without even acknowledging their insignificance. I, myself, am worried about the future generations.
Our country is quite vulnerable; it is only through the [guarantee] of the state of law for all, regardless of any ethnic, religious or political consideration, that we can avoid the very real danger of a chaotic and fatal future. I truly believe that tolerance represents the only realistic and honorable solution to this imminent danger.
Respectfully,
Jafar Panahi
An Iranian filmmaker
