Arab cinema and conferences in Puerto Rico 

Casa Árabe is collaborating with various local institutions to talk about the Arab Springs and is organizing the screening of four films.

From April 28 to 30, the first Arab Cinema Series was held in Puerto Rico, a project held with the cooperation of Casa Árabe, the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao (UPRH), the Center of Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean and the Consulate General of Spain in Puerto Rico.

The official opening took place on April 28 and was given by UPRH’s rector, Efraín Vázquez Vera; Jazmina Román Eyxarch, director of UPRH’s internationalization program; José Hernández Acosta, cultural manager of the same university, and Cruz M. Ortiz Cuadra, director of the Casa Roig Museum.

Karim Hauser, who is responsible for Casa Árabe’s Governance Area, gave the conference “Fourth Anniversary of the Arab Springs,” after which he presented the film Crayons of Askalan (Laila Hotait, Lebanon-Spain, 2011) to an audience which included scholars, artists and members of the Arab community in Puerto Rico.

During the second day, the film The Mosque (Daoud Aoulad-Syad, France-Morocco, 2010) was shown at the UPRH. On the same date of April 29 in the evening, at the Advanced Studies Center of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, located in San Juan’s old town, the university’s rector Miguel Rodríguez presented the film series within the framework of international cooperation, and Karim Hauser discussed the topic of the uprising in the Arab world, before starting the film Asham  (Maggie Morgan, Egypt, 2013).

The closing ceremony took place on April 30 at the UPRH Theater, where a documentary was shown with the title of American Arab (Usama al-Shaibi, USA, 2013), along with an informal talk on the subject of identity amongst the students, the UPRH’s rector and the representative from Casa Árabe. The series was very positively received by the Puerto Rican community, because it allowed them to gain greater knowledge of the diversity existing in the Arab world through the “seventh art,” and to better understand the processes of change which the Middle East and North African regions are going through, while also enriching the university’s activities. We hope to hold this event once again in 2016 and perhaps invite a film director to participate.