An Arab in Hollywood

Four films at once...

2008-12-22T16:19:00.000-08:00

It's been a little longer than expected since my last post. Busy can't even describe how preoccupied I've been in the past few weeks. I'm currently working on four screenplays at once (three shorts and my feature, Broadway Bound), all of which I will be Directing in the next year.

Broadway Bound is moving along smoothly (Production is tentatively slated to begin sometime in early summer). I'm currently finalizing the screenplay with one of the talented producers I have on board. We should have the script locked in the next few weeks. After many conversations, I have decided to include myself in the casting for the lead role of Ali. Many people have urged me to act in it, and I have finally succumbed. It will be a challenge, but I am up for it.

I'm currently on the second draft of my latest AFI SHORT entitled "The Beautiful Veil", which I will be Directing in February. It's an ambitious short film about a young Arab-American girl who is struggling to cope with her identity in the days following the 9/11 attacks. The production design on this film will be vital, since we will be recreating New York City's lower Manhattan area one week after the attacks.

Also in the pipeline, I am working on a first draft of my AFI THESIS FILM entitled "Lost Angel", which I will be Directing sometime next year. The film is about an Arab-American woman who embarks on a road-trip across America to recover the corpse of her husband, who was killed abroad in Iraq. The film is a clear-eyed look at post-9/11 America.

Lastly, I am juggling a few ideas around for my third AFI SHORT, which I will be Directing sometime in April. So there you have it. For those who were wondering where I have been the past few weeks, hopefully this offers you an explanation.

Production meetings, vacation, AFI...

2008-07-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

I will be traveling to London on Tuesday to meet with a few production companies who are interested in financing Broadway Bound. Am feeling very optimistic about the meetings since most of these companies have been known to produce engaging films.

Afterwards, I will be traveling throughout Europe for a month before heading back to Los Angeles and beginning my first year as a Directing fellow at the American Film Institute. Am a little behind on the readings and DVD viewings, but I'm confident I'll be up to par come time for classes to begin on August 21st.

It may be a little while until I post again, since my access to internet will be extremely limited, but I will try my best to fill you guys in on what happens in London as soon as I can.

Stay tuned...

CineVegas Film Festival - Memorial Day

2008-06-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

Below are photos of the world premiere of MEMORIAL DAY, which was held at the CineVegas film festival. I was one of the actors in this extremely controversial film. The film is basically Girls Gone Wild meets Abu Ghraib.

Here is what the press had to say about the film:

DISPATCH FROM LAS VEGAS | CineVegas Showcases Small Films Under Big Lights
Wednesday June 18 6:50 PM ET

by Eric Kohn (June 18, 2008)

"I think we found our audience by the end," said Josh Fox, director of the fiercely controversial feature "Memorial Day," which premiered last week at the CineVegas Film Festival. It was an apt summary of a prevailing sentiment for many filmmakers in town for the event, which showcased a variety of audacious films that would probably get buried at the country's larger festivals. For Fox, the statement merely reflected the small crowd left in the theater for the Q&A, which followed a screening plagued by a wave of walk-outs during its first hour.

It's not that their reactions came as a surprise: "Memorial Day" spends a long time in the company of a queasily explicit group of twentysomethings engaging in grossly hedonistic party behavior on a beach near an army base in Maryland -- their drunken, horny revelry captured in lo-fi home video with the sort of shaky-cam maneuvers that have grown into a code word telling viewers to read between the lines. After awhile, howev er, "Memorial Day" does that for you, as the scene gradually switches to Abu Ghraib, where the same reckless characters apply their brutish tendencies to Iraqi prisoners in ways that the American public now knows too well. Whether or not the transition works or reveals frustratingly obvious intentions is tough to determine, but there certainly were fewer walkouts during the topical second half. Fox leads a theater troupe in New York called the International Wow Company, and "Memorial Day" seems like a kind of brash performance art testing out how much one audience can take.

As it turned out, his initial assessment of the room was something of a misnomer, since many of the remaining viewers quickly took Fox to task for downgrading the Abu Ghraib scenario to a simplistic reading. (He claimed that the soldiers mistreated prisoners because they thought it was "fun," and left it at that.) Still, it's possible that Fox -- a native Manhattanite whose sheltered New York background was overly stressed in the Q&A -- doesn't comprehend the nature of his creation. "Memorial Day" has a mesmerizing hook that unavoidably provokes dialogue about the disingenuousness of the "bad apples" rubric set forth by the American government.

At the same time, it's difficult to recommend. While the film firmly situates Abu Ghraib within the larger context of humanity's destructive tendencies, you have to sift through a lot of unnecessary ugliness to find that conclusion. ("A cousin of 'Full Metal Jacket'," suggested Variety's Robert Koehler after the screening. "A digital verite indictment of the generational nihilism bred by "Girls Gone Wild," "The Real World" and popular culture's general evasion of moral consequence," concluded Spout's Karina Longworth. ) Either way, it's hard to deny the impact it has on viewers willing to stick around. Where Brian De Palma's "Redacted" was intellectually flaccid, "Memorial Day" has a raging boner for the motivations behind Abu Ghraib. "I think there's a searing energy running through the core of America that has no place to go," Fox said, but couldn't really explain it -- and neither could his cast ("We all think torture is bad," said one). If the "Memorial Day" gang doesn 't try to understand their characters, it suggests that they reflect them -- and that makes the movie a symptom of the national disease it seeks to diagnose.

Three short films, one year...

2008-06-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling these past few weeks with coming up with ideas for three short films that I will direct while at the American Film Institute during my first year. After much deliberation, I have finally settled on two of those ideas.

In my previous post, I listed the synopses of the two ideas, but after receiving numerous messages from people who were concerned of my work being stolen, I have opted to remove the descriptions.

I am still struggling with the third story, but I have a few ideas floating around in my mind. Hopefully I will have it locked down before I begin AFI on August 21st.

Off-Broadway acting reviews...

2008-05-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be interesting to post some reviews I received while acting as a terrorist off-Broadway in the production of Back of the Throat at the Flea theater.

BACK OF THE THROAT by Yussef El Guindi
Running Off Broadway @ The Flea Theater (www.theflea.com)

"Albuliwi delivers a compelling, organic performance of subtle honesty, making a man determined to destroy our country both sympathetic and empathetic." -- Sean ODonnell (Show Business Weekly)

"...played with fiery dignity by Bandar Albuliwi" -- Andy Propst (Backstage)

"Albuliwi has a penetrating stare that is both soulful and disconcerting, and his halting vocal delivery and soft Arabic accent lend him a more sensitive air than what we might normally associate with a terrorist." -- Dan Bacalzo (TheaterMania)

"Bandar Albuliwi wonderfully plays Asfoor, a dead Arab man connected to 9/11..." -- Antoinette Nwandu (OffOffOnline)

"Bandar Albuliwi, who plays Asfoor, uses a Middle Eastern accent flawlessly and most poignantly in a monologue about the power of language." -- Liza White (New Theater Corps)

Los Angeles - The city of dreams...

2008-05-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

It has been exactly nine months since I moved to Los Angeles from New York City. In those nine months, I have worked at Paramount Pictures, been fired from six jobs, had a short film screen at the Cannes Film Festival (Broadway Bound), finished writing a feature length screenplay, and have been accepted into the prestigious MFA Directing program at the American Film Institute.

Looking back now, it has been an incredibly long journey to get to where I am today. Before moving out to Los Angeles, I was a professional actor in New York City. I auditioned for stereotypical Middle Eastern roles on a weekly basis, all the while playing a terrorist off-Broadway at the Flea Theater. It was definitely an exciting time in my life.

I decided to make the move out west in the summer of 2007. I had just finished directing my first short film (Broadway Bound), about an Arab-American actor struggling to survive in post-9/11 New York City. I wrote and directed Broadway Bound because I was fed up with all of the stereotypical roles I was being offered, and decided that change needed to be evoked. The film was based on my personal experiences as an Arab-American actor while living in New York City shortly after the 9/11 attacks. I was able to get Emmy-Award Nominee / National Board of Review winner Louise Lasser (Happiness, Requiem for a Dream, Take the Money and Run, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) to play the role of my talent agent in the film.

Shortly after finishing post-production on Broadway Bound, I packed my bags and made the move out west to Los Angeles. After a few weeks of living there, I decided to apply to the American Film Institute's prestigious Directing program. I wrote my personal statement in a few days while working a horrible desk job, and sent in my short film Broadway Bound as a creative sample of my work.

I received an interview from AFI a few months later, and on April 14th, I received a phone call from Peter Markham informing me I was admitted into the Directing program. Those were by far some of the best words I ever heard in my life. It has always been a dream of mine to one day walk the same halls as some of my favorite filmmakers. I was one of only 28 Directing fellows from all over the world who were admitted into the competetive program. I will now be joining the ranks of filmmakers such as Darren Aronofsky, David Lynch, Todd Field, Edward Zwick, and many others, who all graduated from AFI's Directing program.

This brings me to where I am today. I invite everyone to come on board with me as my journey to becomming a filmmaker beings.