Dir: Caveh Zahedi
USA/2010/108mins
Print Source: Caveh Zahedi - cavehzahedi@me.com
Australian Premiere
Official Selection: SxSW
Official Selection: San Francisco
Caveh Zahedi – director of I Am A Sex Addict (Rev 2006) – is invited to a Middle Eastern Biennial and offered the opportunity to make a new movie on the theme of ‘art as a subversive act’ to screen at the event. Free to do whatever they want to, except make fun of the Sheik, Caveh and his small crew / family travel to the Middle East to make the film.
Seeing exactly how far he can go in exploring the theme he turns his camera on all around him. What follows is astonishing, as the director explores subversion and expectation. The increasingly disturbed Biennale staff try to respond to the challenges Caveh’s project raises for them. As if making the film wasn’t hard enough, submitting the finished movie to the Biennale has the potential to become a major international incident.
Not for the faint hearted or politically correct, this is by turns hilarious and terrifying as The Sheik & I in equal parts and interestingly challenges and reinforces sterotypes and preconceptions on the Middle Eastern veil.
“It's a daring work made with reckless abandon - in other words, both irresponsible and necessary.” Indiewire.