Joe Gutierrez Office of Strategic Communication (909) 537-5007 joeg@csusb.edu
Updated on Oct. 13 with new information on venue listings for the film's screenings.
Ahlam Muhtaseb, a Cal State San Bernardino communication studies professor, and her film partner, Andy Trimlett, will present their documentary “1948: Creation & Catastrophe” at a number of prestigious events across the country.
“1948: Creation & Catastrophe,” a documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will be featured at:
- Georgetown University, Walsh School of Public Service, on Tuesday, Oct. 17, in Washington D.C.;
- Hunter College media studies department on Wednesday, Oct. 18, New York, New York;
- Palestine Solidary Week on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 19 and 20, at University of Memphis and Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee;
- The Boston Palestine Film Festival on Oct. 23, at Cambridge Public Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and
- The San Diego Arab Film Festival on Oct. 29, at AMC Mission Valley 20 in San Diego.
Both Muhtaseb and Trimlett will attend the Georgetown and San Diego screenings; Muhtaseb will be at the New York, Tennessee and Massachusetts screenings.
The documentary premiered at the 26th annual Arizona International Film Festival in April, where 96 independent films were chosen from 20 countries. According to its website, the 2017 Arizona International Film Festival was “honored to select more exciting and innovative films from around the world for Arizona audiences.”
The documentary was also shown in London on Aug. 19 and 22, as part of the Art Under Siege Exhibition at the OXO UK Tower in South Bank. Muhtaseb, who co-directed the film, attended the events.
“In November, we have another line up of screenings and, in December, we will have an international tour,” said Muhtaseb. “Our film is making the rounds and getting CSUSB a lot of name recognition and acclaim.”
Muhtaseb anticipates that the documentary will be shown at film festivals and screenings around the country for the next couple of years.
“1948: Creation & Catastrophe” uncovers the events of 1948, the most pivotal year in the most controversial conflict in the world. According to the website, it is impossible to make sense of what is currently happening in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without understanding what happened in the year 1948.
The website reads: “This documentary is the last chance to hear first-hand accounts of what took place in Haifa, Jaffa, Dayr Yasin, Acre, Jerusalem, Ramle and Lydda from the Israelis and Palestinians who personally fought in and fled from this land. These shocking and dramatic events reveal the core of what drives the conflict today.”
To complete their 86-minute documentary, which took nine years to make, Muhtaseb and Trimlett conducted more than 90 interviews, poured over 2,000 pages of historical documents, collected more than 2,000 photographs from three dozen sources, combed through hours of archival film and gathered dozens of documents from Israeli military archives.
To learn more about the documentary “1948: Creation & Catastrophe,” visit its website at 1948movie.com.
For more information on Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.