Short films

[compak]

I 'm sharing my two favorite short films , please share your's.

Validation

Signs

 

[Dalai Lama]

 

[Skies]

The opening monologue from Raisins, Not Virgins, a play by Sharbari Ahmad.
Dhaka, Bangladesh on the 9th, 10th and 11th of March...

The WorkShop Theater Company's production of Raisins Not Virgins by Sharbari Ahmed and directed by Thomas Cote, will run through October 15th at the WorkShop Theater (312 W. 36th St., on the 4th flor, between 8th and 9th Avenues). The show, billed as a "romantic comedy about jihad," began performances there on September 23rd.

"Raisins Not Virgins is a tale of spiritual and political turmoil set against a backdrop of New York dating angst. It traces the hilarious journey and jihad of a young American-Muslim woman as she traverses the minefields of identity and love. Sahar Salam is a 29 year old, apolitical, well-heeled, and lonely New York advertising professional who loses her boyfriend to causes and ideologies greater than she is willing to admit. This loss forces her to confront a lifelong resentment against the religion of her birth, Islam. It also marks the beginning of her personal jihad, which, for Sahar, involves a great deal of drinking and a dubious flirtation with the world of art," according to press notes.

"The title Raisins Not Virgins refers to a controversial Koranic verse that supposedly states a Muslim martyr will receive the reward of virgins in heaven. Recent interpretations have found that the arabic word more accurately translates into raisin, specifically raisins of 'startling white clarity.' The latter translation may have more credence given the high premium placed on a good raisin at the time."

Ahmed, also playing Sahar, is of Bangladeshi and Muslim background and a die-hard New Yorker. She was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, grew up in Chester CT, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Japan and studied Mandarin in China. She began work on Raisins Not Virgins after the events of September 11th in an attempt to confront her Muslim identity. It was briefly produced in 2003 and she has since written a screenplay version. Ahmed, a published author and English professor, attended Northfield Mt. Hermon, holds a BA in English and Journalism from Marymount College and an MA in Creative Writing from NYU.

Biography:

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. – E.B. White

Sharbari Zohra Ahmed was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1971 but had to flee with her family when she was three weeks old due to the outbreak of revolutionary war. She was raised in Connecticut and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she learned to show jump and to say “fart”, “lemon” and “How are you?” in Amharic.

She attended boarding school in bucolic Massachusetts where she was always either on disciplinary or academic probation until she graduated (without any honors) in 1989. The only subject in which she ever got an A was Mandarin Chinese, thus leading us to the next part of an underachiever’s journey, in Beijing, China.

Once in Red China, Ms. Ahmed attended Beijing Shir Fan Da Shue or Beijing Normal University. At the time she was too young to comment on the irony of attending a normal university. There she learned that in fact she really wasn’t fluent in mandarin at all, and the joys of kissing gorgeous diminutive French men. Eventually she did learn to speak enough Chinese to haggle with vendors in Yi fu (or clothing) Alley near the American Embassy, and received her certificate of language competency in 1990.

After her stint in Beijing, she gained acceptance to Marymount College, a small Catholic women’s college in Tarrytown, NY run by relatively nice nuns — again irony lost upon subject, who is Muslim. There she made friends and decided to get good grades. She actually managed to graduate (cum laude—many wondered which nun she had paid off) by 1994, only a year later than expected.

Ms Ahmed then managed to gain acceptance into New York University’s graduate creative writing program, where she received an MA. She tried to get published and an agent. She was advised to write more about arranged marriages and turmeric. Enough about that.

In 2003, she wrote, produced and starred in her first play, Raisins Not Virgins. The Workshop Theater Company produced it again in 2005 and she forced them to cast her in the lead because apparently it is unheard of for a playwright to act in her own play. Who knew? Because Ms. Ahmed really always wanted to be an actress—specifically a Scandinavian actress because when she was nine she met Liv Ullman—and realized very quickly Hollywood wasn’t interested in her, she decided to turn Raisins Not Virgins into a screenplay, which she did.

The screenplay she wrote was selected for the prestigious Tribeca All Access program at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008. About Raisins: there are Muslims, Jews and Lesbians in it – good wholesome family fare.

Most recently, she moved to Dhaka, Bangladesh for six months and wrote and directed a short film, Duniya. It was an exhilarating experience. Her crew was entirely male and insisted on calling her “sir”. That was not the exhilarating part; it was the very act of creating a film in a foreign land with little money in four days that reminded her what a joy it is to be alive.

She has finished a novel, Bombay Duck, set in 1940’s Calcutta and continues to write what she hopes are thought provoking columns for the Daily Star Weekend Magazine.

She lives with her son in Connecticut.