Pre-Screening Reception: 5:30-7pm, Communications 150

Film Screening:  7-8:30, Communications, Studio C

While living abroad, a filmmaker returns to Tripoli, Lebanon, to confront a hometown that once rejected him as a queer child. With a microphone in hand, he walks around coffee shops, public squares, and a park to ask the city’s inhabitants about their cultural and social beliefs and their embrace of new ideas. Gradually, he meets a group of marginalized individuals whose eccentric life choices contradict the general lifestyle in this religiously and socially conservative city. Through intimate conversations with a communist activist, a queer music producer, and other unconventional characters, Tripoli: A Tale of Three Cities explores the complicated relations one forms with a hometown in crisis. This contemplative urban symphony paints a picture of a city trapped in a self-spun web, paralyzed by a deep economic crisis, a faltering revolution, and a looming doomsday.

Join us for a screening of the film followed by a discussion between UC Santa Cruz alum, Raed Rafei, and Professor of Film and Digital Media, Peter Limbrick.

Raed (El) Rafei is a filmmaker, scholar, and multimedia journalist who has directed award-winning documentaries and experimental films. As a journalist, he has worked for international publications like the Los Angeles Times and news outlets like CNN and Al-Jazeera Documentary Channel. Rafei holds a PhD in Film and Digital Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MA in Journalism from the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is an Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and his research focuses on queer cinema in the Arab region and its diasporas. His films, which include Tripoli: A Tale of Three Cities, 74 (The Reconstitution of a Struggle) and Al-Atlal (The Ruins), have screened at international film festivals and venues like IDFA, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Doc Lisboa, Visions du Réel, and the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley.

Presented by the Center for the Middle East and North Africa and co-sponsored by Film and Digital Media