Name: Batikh Batikh presents See You at Home No Matter What: Queer Cinema
Start: 2025-02-08T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-02-08T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Asian Arts Initiative

Batikh Batikh presents See You at Home No Matter What: Queer Cinema

PROUDLY PHILLY. BOLDLY INDEPENDENT. SINCE 2013.Voted Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly® 2020 — Best Movie Theater

cinéSPEAK

A Lebanese cinema showcase and fundraiser featuring two separate short film programs, co-presented by Batikh Batikh and cinéSPEAK!

Asian Arts Initiative

ABOUT THE EVENT_____Batikh Batikh (BB) is happy to announce its first event of 2025! See You at Home No Matter What, co-presented with cinéSPEAK, is a Lebanese cinema showcase and fundraiser featuring two separate short film programs. For BB’s founder, Lebanese-American curator, Sarah Trad, these events have long been in the making and are the first opportunity where BB has focused exclusively on Lebanese culture and mutual aid. First, New Forms features experimental cinema from Lebanese women artists, including narratives that blend dance, surrealism and general weirdness into their storytelling as well as art video and essay films. The following evening, Queer Cinema will focus on queer narratives by Lebanese filmmakers and host the local guest director and actor from the film To’oborni. Deeply connected to the rest of Bilad-al-Sham, Lebanon has experienced so much since October 7th, 2023 including the constant bombing and use of white phosphorus in its southern lands and Beirut, terrorist attacks against its citizens, an Israeli invasion and the appointment of a new Prime Minister and President. BB will send mutual aid to invest in Lebanon’s infrastructure as well as help those who have been displaced by zionist violence. See You at Home No Matter What is a love letter from our Founder/Director to the lands that birthed her family and its hopeful future. New Forms - Feb. 7th, DOORS at 6pm, FILMS at 6:30-8pmQueer Cinema - Feb. 8th, DOORS at 6pm, FILMS at 6:30-8pm PAYMENT INFO_____All tickets are Pay What You Can (PWYC), and 100% of donations go to mutual aid in Lebanon. You must pre-register for each screening separately. For this particular screening, we ask that anyone looking to donate for the purchase of tickets send directly to Batikh Batikh via the Venmo or Paypal accounts below. Please keep payment confirmation handy so we can check you in at the event! PLEASE NOTE: Due to company policies that cancel payments with buzzwords that pertain to the SWANA region, please do not include words like “Lebanon” in the descriptions for Venmo or Paypal. This can lead to our accounts being shut down!! If you want to pay for tickets for the screening please use “Tickets” or “Batikh” in the description. Thank you!! PAYPAL: sarahmtrad@gmail.comVENMO: @sarahmtrad RUSH TICKETS: If the event pre-registration SELLS OUT, Batikh Batikh will be selling rush tickets at the door. Anyone who has not pre-registered for a sold-out event must come to the venue at 6pm and put their name on a WAITLIST. This is first-come-first-serve and does not guarantee you a ticket. If the venue still has unclaimed seats after the start of the program at 6:40pm we will allow those on the top of the waitlist to fill these seats regardless of pre-registration. To secure your seat if you HAVE pre-registered please make sure to arrive on time to the event.&nbsp; ACCESSIBILITY INFO:_____This event is indoors. Mask-wearing is REQUIRED. BB will have a HEPA air purifier on site. Asian Arts Initiative is designed as a mobility-accessible facility, with access to all public floors, spaces, and seating accommodations for programmed events. If you are feeling sick or have possibly been exposed to COVID-19, we kindly ask that you stay home. There is a strobe warning for two films in this program: Everything is Easy, Everything is Hard and In Case of Conscious Inhibition, Break Glass. TW: This film program contains violence, homophobia, mention of domestic abuse, blood, police violence. ABOUT THE PROGRAM_____THE RUINSDir. Raed Rafei / 2021 / 15 minA drawing of an ancient bathhouse in a French travel book to the Middle East sparks a visual poem, inspired by the Arab poetry tradition of "standing by the ruins." The ambivalence of the five-hundred-year-old image gestures towards enduring capitalist and colonial power dynamics. Pleasure and pain, seduction and domination, archives and ruins, histories of sex, and histories of empire, all come together in this essay film. What transpires is a web of visible and invisible threads where homosexuality in the Middle East today seems to be enmeshed. EVERYTHING IS EASY, EVERYTHING IS HARDDir. Pamela C. Saade / 2023 / 6 minOmar, a Lebanese guy living in Paris, returns with Alex from a date. He seems a bit disconnected, a little game with Alex makes him burst and talk about all that he’s going through abroad. TO’OBORNIDir. L.B. / 2023 / 12 minTensions rise at home when Salma's family braces for a visit from Lebanese relatives. After not having seen them in over 20 years, her mother and teta return to Middle Eastern traditions in order to impress. However, as a high school senior struggling with her own identity, Salma must choose between being the daughter her mother wants to present to them, and being herself. SULTANA’S REIGNDir. Hadi Moussally / 2024 / 10 minSultana of New York is a Palestinian drag queen, performer, and artist. "Sultana’s Reign" opens with a conversation with Sultana, as she is being painted by Jordanian artist, RIDIKKULUZ. Reflecting on her journey from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, to then New York, Sultana tells of the challenges of performing drag in conservative societies, her nostalgia for the glory days and the glamour of Egyptian cinema icons, and her struggle to prove her existence and her self-expression as a performer and artist. She also shares her love of celebration and her everlasting commitment to be true to herself. IN CASE OF CONSCIOUS INHIBITION, BREAK GLASSDir. Hadi Ibrahim / 2024 / 15 minThe film follows a young adult who struggles with his sexual identity. His inner conflict reaches a peak when he attends a party with his mysterious female companion. FRESCOES OF A RUINED MEMORYDir. Adnan Kayssi / 2023 / 19 minKamal and Jad, two men in their twenties, live together in an apartment. Kamal, haunted by his nightmares, projects his fears onto his boyfriend, Jad. Their relationship becomes increasingly unstable until one of them realizes he can no longer continue. In the end, he leaves for another city. NEO NADHADir. May Ziadé / 2023 / 13 minMona, a young woman in London, finds archived photographs of Arab women cross-dressing in the Middle East in the 1920s. Somewhere between her fantasies and reality, she starts a feverish journey of uncovering lost histories and her own identity. Through a coming-of-age narrative, the film explores the euphoric relationship those who are marginalised create with images and symbols, and how archive images can be a portal for the world of inner projections, creating meaning and grounding one's identity.

Batikh Batikh presents See You at Home No Matter What: Queer Cinema

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Batikh Batikh presents See You at Home No Matter What: Queer Cinema

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