Join us for the final film in our “Summer of Resistance” series - a very special season of Queer|Art|Film featuring films selected by activists and politically engaged collectives. Our special guest host for the evening is novelist, playwright, historian and lesbian rights activist, Sarah Schulman, who will moderate the Q&A alongside QAF co-curator Adam Baran.
A GLASS AND A CIGARETTE
1955. Egypt. 112 min. Directed by Niazi Mostafa. In Arabic with English subtitles.
We wrap up our Summer season with a captivating classic from the Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema. Tonight’s presenter is Tarab NYC whose mission is to foster an inclusive and safe community for queer Arab and MENA people. A Glass and a Cigarette features several of the era’s brightest stars, including Samia Gamal who plays a woman transitioning from bellydance stardom to domestic bliss. For Tarab NYC this film is a perfect fit for QAF, as it takes “careful consideration of gender in relation to class, career, and performativities of sexual availability.”
As always, our screening will be followed by drinks and discussion at Julius Bar (159 West 10th St. at Waverly), the oldest gay bar in New York City!
TARAB NYC
Tarab NYC, a non-profit, fosters an inclusive and safe community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and/or gender non-conforming Arab, Middle Eastern, and/or North African people in the greater New York City area.
TARAB NYC ON A GLASS AND A CIGARETTE
We selected this film because of its careful consideration of gender in relation to class, career, and performativities of sexual availability. Samia Gamal's casting as a woman transitioning from public bellydance stardom to private domestic bliss, and struggling with the expectations and demands of that "bliss," ties every bit with the 1952 Free Officers Revolution that took place three years before the film's release. The failed expectations of a modernizing revolution, coupled with the dancer-turned-housewife's turn to addiction, symbolize the bodily precarity experienced when a feminized body attempts to reap the benefits of heteronormativity, only to find that its returns are either forever deferred or never fulfilling.