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Arsalan Mohammad
A Mirage? The Tribeca Film Festival in Doha
11/05/2009 10:36 AM
Amidst lavish hype and grandiose statements of intent, eastern and western movie stars, and industry bigwigs, a reputed 4000-strong audience of locals congregated waterside for the inauguration of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival last weekend.
Launched by Robert de Niro in depressed post-9/11 Lower Manhattan in 2002, Tribeca came to Doha largely thanks to the daughter of Qatar's Emir, Sheikha Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, who interned for Festival director Jane Rosenthal at the Tribeca offices in New York three years ago. She put the idea of a satellite event to Rosenthal, who recognized the benefits of bringing the Tribeca brand to the culturally-aspiring state. Dubai, the city-state on the coast, has presented an international film festival annually since 2004, and hosts galleries, theatres and two major art fairs. Neighboring Abu Dhabi, the staid elder brother to Dubai, launched its own film festival two years ago, and is debuting its own major art fair within weeks—not to mention the prospects of franchises of the Louvre and the Guggenheim. (PHOTO: MICHAEL BUCKNER; THE MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART)
At a luncheon Thursday afternoon saw downplay any cynical mutterings of store-bought big Western brand names. "We wanted to incorporate Qataris in the festival so nobody here would think we're simply imposing a festival," she said, going on to detail an extensive schedule of panel discussions, debates, cinema masterclasses, competitions, and 32 feature, documentary and short movies too, over four days.
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10/27/2009 09:39 AM
Over green tea, biscuits and strawberries at Reykjavik's Nordica Hotel, Yoko Ono took time out from promoting her Peace Tower project–the annual light sculpture that shoots up high into the Icelandic night each fall, between the dates of John Lennon's birthday (October 9) and the anniversary of his death (December 8)–to talk up her latest album, Between My Head And The Sky. Backed by a band directed by son Sean and featuring the best and brightest of Japanese avant-pop, the album sees 76-year-old Ono returning to the Plastic Ono Band, and sliding yet again ahead of the art-electro pack, for whom she remains the questioned godmother.
ARSALAN MOHAMMAD: The new album, Between My Head And The Sky, has a very eclectic mix of styles and sounds you cover.
YOKO ONO: When you look at my past albums, I'm always doing many different styles because I have so much love for each musical form. And it just comes natural to me. All those theme albums–with this, I didn't say... OK, it's a feminist album so we're not going to do this or that. But here, my body–my being–is there. So. I don't have to do anything. It just comes in, you know, it's just fun.
MOHAMMAD: I really like the opener, "Waiting For The D-Train." It's classic Yoko–shrieky, demented.
ONO: [LAUGHS] Aah, so glad you liked it! And you know, there was a debate about it. If you put "Waiting For The D Train" first, then people might think that, "Oh, this is just a screaming album" and they may not listen to it. But I thought, so if there's somebody like that, then I don't care, you know. [LAUGHS]
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