Assalamu Alaykum / Peace be upon you

MAPS-MCOC is very pleased to welcome two filmmakers, Iram Parveen Bilal and Fathia M Absie on February 24th, 2017 at 7pm in the MPR Room. Iram and Fathia have both used the media of filmmaking to shed light and address issues and challenges facing the Muslim community. On the 24th, they will screen select productions of theirs and lead a panel discussion and Q&A. The program is free and will be of interest to the broad public. Please attend and bring a friend, colleague or neighbor with you.

Agenda:

7-7:30PM "Extinction" Screening & Discussion [Iram Parveen Bilal]

7:30-8PM Segments of "Broken Dreams" and "The Lobby" Screening & Discussion [Fathia Absie]

8-8:15PM Break for Isha Prayers

8:15-8:45PM Q&A [Iram & Fathia]

About our Guests:

Raised in Nigeria and Pakistan, Iram Parveen Bilal is a Physics Olympian turned filmmaker. She just directed her 6th film, EXTINCTION, a dystopian near future where Donald Trump's so-called ban on Muslim immigration is a reality. Her 2nd feature film, THE PHD MOVIE: STILL IN GRAD SCHOOL, is a feature adaptation of the 7 million+-followed PhD Comics. Her first feature, JOSH, a 2012 Women in Film awardee, enjoyed theatrical and ancillary distribution success in multiple territories. Her next feature project, FORBIDDEN STEPS, a film about Islamophobia and Dance, is a Film Independent writer/director lab project, scheduled for filming in Spring 2017 in Chicago. She is also developing her TV Series THE PIONEERS, which showcases the mass migration from South Asia to the UK in the 1950s in response to Queen Elizabeth's frantic call for labor from the commonwealth nations. Iram was recently selected for the Women In Film/Sundance Financier's Intensive Program and is a co-chair on the Asian American Writer's Committee at the Writer's Guild of America. She also sits on the board of the community service organization, the Caltech Y. Bilal is the initiator and current member of the Pakistani Oscar committee and is also the founder of Pakistan's first professional screenwriting lab (QALAMBAAZ).


Fathia M. Absie is a Somali American freelance writer and filmmaker, and a former Voice Of America broadcaster/reporter. After many years of working as a social worker with an immensely diverse population and different communities, Ms. Absie decided that it was time to pursue a life-long dream of storytelling. Hearing each other's stories can help us realize that we are more alike than we are unlike. As a native Somali and a concerned citizen of the world, Ms. Absie felt the desperate urgency to tell and document the stories of Somali women and children, whose plight is seldom reported in-depth. She sees them as the innocent victims of a cruel civil and extremist war in Somalia. Even those who were fortunate enough to escape the death and destruction in their native country and made it to the safety of the U.S. and other Western countries have to once more face the insanity of war in their new and adapted countries. She says, "I feel a sense of urgency to tell the silent sufferings of the Somali people and share it with the world. My hope is to inspire change trough the lenses and the power of social media." Broken Dreams is her first documentary. Her latest film is a narrative called The Lobby, a love story about friendship and cultural differences.

Thank you

Dr. Rania Hussein
MAPS-MCOC Executive Director External Event Url
Muslim Association of Puget Sound - MAPS
17550 NE 67th Ct, Redmond, WA, United States