ArabishWay

Arabic Storytime @ Lake City Branch / وقت القصص بالعربية في فرع ليك سيتي
2024-05-25 10:30 - 11:30, 2024-05-18 10:30 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Lake City – Seattle Public Library, 12501 28th Ave. N.E., Seattle, Washington, 98125, United States
At storytime, children from birth through elementary school and their families can enjoy stories, songs, and fun learning activities.
Event in English and Arabic.

Seffarine (Portland)
2024-05-24 19:30 - 21:00 | Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave, Portland, OR, 97201
At a momentous first meeting at a coffee shop in Fez, Moroccan vocalist Lamiae Naki and multi-instrumentalist Nat Hulskamp composed their first song and decided to get married. Brought together by their deep knowledge of the music of both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar — Spanish flamenco and Moroccan Arabic music — they created Seffarine.
Seffarine takes its name from the ancient metalworking square in Fez, which is famous for the complex rhythms that ring out from the blacksmiths’ hammers, and where Lamiae’s family is well known as masters of the tradition. Seffarine‘s music embraces and extends Morocco’s musical collision between Arabic, Iberian and West African cultures, forging vibrant original music deeply rooted in their backgrounds in flamenco guitar, oud and Arab Andalusian music. Nat and Lamiae built an international quintet bringing in all star musicians from Iran, the US and Spain, who infuse the sound with textured instrumentation and inspired improvisation. Sweeping kamancheh (Persian spike-fiddle) ornamentation plays off gritty bass grooves and explosive flamenco footwork, with Lamiae’s fluidly riveting voice at the center, sending up sheets of cascading Andalusi melodies punctuated by the catchy hooks of North African Chaabi, sung in her native Moroccan Arabic. Their sound has taken them around the world, from touring Indonesia and Europe to receiving grants to study Ottoman singing in Turkey, to recording with top flamenco musicians in Spain such as Diego del Morao and Latin Grammy Award winner Antonio Rey.

The Moroccan Kitchen: Cooking Class
2024-05-24 18:00 - 20:30 | Whisk, 10385 Main St, Bellevue, WA, 98004, United States
In this hands-on class you’ll be swept off to another continent to experience the exotic spices and fresh herbs of classic North African cuisine. This authentic Moroccan menu highlights traditional ingredients that are easy to find here. You’ll learn about using preserved lemons, couscous, saffron and fenugreek in the savory dishes and ground almonds, honey and orange blossom water in dessert. Make a fork-tender chicken dish baked in a traditional, earthenware dish called a tagine. Chef Barbara Sowatsky will show you that “spiced” doesn’t have to mean “spicy” as she takes you step-by-step through this flavor-layered menu.
You will make:

Chicken Tagine with Meyer Lemons and Olives
Couscous with Saffron, Mint and Basil
Cucumber and Tomato Chopped Salad
Almond-Stuffed Dates

Movie: The Old Oak
2024-05-23 16:30 - 18:30, 2024-05-22 16:30 - 18:30, 2024-05-21 16:30 - 18:30, 2024-05-20 16:30 - 18:30, 2024-05-18 13:00 - 15:00, 2024-05-17 16:00 - 18:00, 2024-05-16 16:30 - 18:30, 2024-05-15 19:30 - 21:30 and 1 more date | The Beacon, 4405 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98118, United States
The Old Oak is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing in its small northern town, but it’s also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline. Its owner TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) hangs on to The Old Oak by his fingertips, and his predicament is endangered even more when the pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees who are placed in the village without any notice. In an unlikely friendship, TJ meets a curious young Syrian photographer named Yara (Ebla Mari). Together can they find a way for the two communities to understand each other? So unfolds a deeply moving drama about their fragilities and hopes.

SIFF: The Mother of All Lies [Morocco]
2024-05-20 - 2024-05-27 | Virtual
How do you reconstruct the past when all traces of that past have been erased? This is the dilemma that confronts filmmaker Asmae El Moudir, in terms of both her personal history and the history of her country. In terms of her personal history, her tyrannical grandmother has forbidden the taking of photographs in the family, seemingly as part of a larger obfuscation of the past. In the absence of photographs, El Moudir enlists her father, a successful builder, to help her construct an elaborate diorama of the street where the family lived during her childhood, in the Sebata district of Casablanca. She populates the diorama with miniature clay figurines of her family, friends, and neighbors. Their real-life counterparts are then invited to revisit their memories of that time and place—in particular the 1981 Casablanca Bread Riots, protests over the price of bread that were brutally suppressed by the police and military. On El Moudir’s street alone, a girl her age named Fatima was killed in the street; neighbors Saïd and Abdallah were seized and tortured. These events have been suppressed in El Moudir’s family history, as well as in the national history. But El Moudir recreates them, retrieving what might otherwise be lost; bringing family secrets and memories to light, and achieving some measure of justice, if only in miniature.

SIFF: Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano [Lebanon]
2024-05-20 - 2024-05-27 | Virtual
While shooting Costa Brava, Lebanon (SIFF 2022), the film crew’s world stopped when Lebanon’s Port of Beirut suddenly exploded, killing over 200 people and injuring thousands more. What does it mean to strive for human dignity and make art amid a country’s continuing turmoil?

Nakba 76
2024-05-19 14:00 - 16:00 | Gas Works Park, 2101 N Northlake Way, Seattle, WA, 98103
🇵🇸 SEATTLE 🇵🇸: This year, the Palestinian Nakba enters its 76th year and comes at the heels of a violent onslaught against our people in Gaza who have been facing a US-backed Israeli genocide for over 6 months. What we have witnessed these past months in Gaza is part of an ongoing colonial project to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land since the Nakba, which began in 1948. For more than 76 years, Israel and its imperialist allies have conspired to destroy the will for Palestinian liberation, and for more than 76 years Palestinians have resisted their oppressors.
We must carry on this struggle of resistance until all Palestinians return home! We invite all Palestinian, Arab, and progressive organizations and people of conscience to join us on May 18 to honor the martyrs and demand:
1️⃣ An end to the genocide in Gaza
2️⃣ An immediate two-way arms embargo
3️⃣ The release of all Palestinian political prisoners
4️⃣ Immediate humanitarian aid and investment in relief efforts to help rebuild Gaza
5️⃣ An end to the Zionist occupation of Palestine!

Planting the Seeds of Liberation
2024-05-19 14:00 - 16:00 | Gas Works Park, 2101 N Northlake Way, Seattle, WA, 98103
This year, the Palestinian Nakba enters its 76th year and comes at the heels of a violent onslaught against our people in Gaza who have been facing a US-backed Israeli genocide for over 6 months. What we have witnessed these past months in Gaza is part of an ongoing colonial project to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land since the Nakba, which began in 1948. For more than 76 years, Israel and its imperialist allies have conspired to destroy the will for Palestinian liberation, and for more than 76 years Palestinians have resisted their oppressors.
In commemoration of Nakba, join us on May 19 to sow seeds of resistance. For this community event, we will learn about the role of Palestinian agriculture and farming in resistance, along with the significance of plants, such as the poppy. This practice of cultivating and caring for our roots is a one of defiance against Zionist aggression, land theft, and ethnic cleansing. We must carry on this struggle of resistance until all Palestinians return home!
📍Gas Works Park
⏰ 2 pm
📆 May 19

Kuffiyeh Walk - Kirkland Edition
2024-05-19 10:00 - 12:00 | Google Building C (Parking Lot), 747 6th Street South, Kirkland, WA, 98033, United States
Wear your kuffiyeh and walk proudly!
Meet on Google’s Kirkland Campus!
You can park in the parking lot of Building C. Head down to the trail and meet us at the playground

Head down to the trail and meet us at the playground

Contact Nadera with questions: nadera0425@yahoo.com

Seffarine
2024-05-18 19:00 - 21:00 | New Traditions, 300 5th Ave SW, Olympia, WA, 98501, United States
“gorgeous intersection of Spanish flamenco, Arabic and Andalusian music, Persian classical, and jazz” -Bass Player Magazine

The sounds that stir the dry winds of Southern Spain and Morocco, two countries separated by only a whisper of the Mediterranean, are the musical DNA of a beautifully complex extended family linking North Africa and Europe.

The musicians of Seffarine, soulful Moroccan singer Lamiae Naki and flamenco guitarist Nat Hulskamp, supported by master musicians of diverse cultures, embrace and extend this rich legacy. Their exciting performances masterfully combine explosive flamenco footwork, exotic instrumentation and grooving basslines. These diverse backgrounds meld, creating what SoundRoots describes as “an ear-caressing blend of sounds from Spain and North Africa, spiced with a bit of fiery instrumentation and percussion.”

“Seffarine’s music can melt the coldest hearts” -Chicago Reader

SIFF: Three Promises [Palestine]
2024-05-18 17:30 - 19:30, 2024-05-17 14:30 - 16:30 | SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St, Seattle, 98109
In the early 2000s, when the Israeli army was retaliating against the Second Intifada in the West Bank in Palestine, Suha filmed the experience from the hillside town of Beit Jala, where she lived with her family. Two decades later, her son has edited that footage and interwoven it with present-day conversations with his mother about what that period was like. The result provides a remarkable insight into daily life during wartime—the uncertainty, the upheaval, the terror—which families in Gaza are experiencing today. Suha and her husband try to gauge the distance of the attacks in order to calculate the degree of threat. Is it time to go down to the basement, or is it still okay to remain upstairs? Will the children be safer against the wall or in the corner? At the moments of greatest danger, Suha promises God that, if they survive, they will leave—they are fortunate enough to be able to do so. But leaving feels almost as impossible as staying, a choice between emotional anguish (not to mention the logistical ordeal) and physical jeopardy. In this way, the film is also an exploration of the topic of forced migration, another aspect of the Palestinian experience that is still with us in the present.

SIFF: After the Fire (North African in France)
2024-05-16 12:45 - 14:45 | SIFF Cinema Downtown, 2100 4th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98121
As an immigrant family mourns the death of one of their own at the hands of Strasbourg’s brutal police force, they decide to take on the justice system that helped to cover it up in this rousing political thriller from Mehdi Fikri.

SIFF: The Mother of All Lies [Morocco]
2024-05-16 12:30 - 14:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States

AANM: Arab Film Festival
2024-05-15 - 2024-05-19 | Virtual
SAVE THE DATE : AANM’s Arab Film Festival is just around the corner!
May 15-19, 2024
AANM proudly hosts the annual Arab Film Festival (AFF) featuring the best of critically acclaimed and award-winning Arab American and Arab world films, many of which are unlikely to reach traditional American commercial theaters.
This year’s festival will include special events like an artist workshop, a filmmakers mixer and a concert with special guests! Stay tuned for more info…

SIFF: The Mother of All Lies (Morocco)
2024-05-14 21:00 - 23:00 | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine St suite 400, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States

SIFF: Voy! Voy! Voy! [Egypt]
2024-05-14 13:30 - 15:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
How far would you go to change your life? In Egypt’s official Oscar® submission, Hassan is desperate to leave his home country. With few options left, he pretends to be blind so he can join a disabled soccer team headed to Poland. Inspired by an unbelievable true story.

SIFF: The Burdened (Yemen)
2024-05-14 13:30 - 15:30 | SIFF Egyptian, 805 E Pine St, Seattle, WA, 98122
Films from Yemen are rare, in part because of the country’s long-running civil war, now in its tenth year. Indeed, the impact of the war on the country and its citizens—there’s no running water; electricity is erratic; warring factions struggle for control—is one of the burdens faced by middle-class couple Isra’a and Ahmed. Ahmed works for Aden Television, but as a result of the country’s economic crisis, his salary has been suspended for several months. Meanwhile, he’s taken a second job as a taxi driver, but it isn’t enough to keep them and their three children in their comfortable apartment. Isra’a, who has also lost her job, sells her jewelry to make ends meet. This is the context in which Isra’a realizes that she is pregnant. Keenly aware that they cannot afford a fourth child, she is also worried about whether abortion is permitted under Islam. Religious and public opinion on the issue vary, which means that Isra’a’s personal misgivings are only the beginning. Clear-eyed, understated, and compelling, The Burdened tells a story that is at once specific to Yemen’s particular context, and relatable in any country where religion and politics threaten people’s ability to access the healthcare they need, and take care of themselves and their families.

SIFF: Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano [Lebanon]
2024-05-13 21:00 - 22:30 | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine St suite 400, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States

SIFF: Hajjan [Saudi Arabia]
2024-05-13 20:30 - 22:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Two young Bedouin brothers Matar (first-time actor Omar AlAtawi) and Ghanim have grown up listening to stories about their legendary grandfather, referred to only as “Hajjan,” the Arabic word for jockey. Determined to carry on the family tradition, Ghanim is preparing for the Great Safwa Race, where both jockeys and camel owners vie for glory. After Ghanim is killed during the race, it appears that Jasser Al Saqqar, the scheming owner of another team, is responsible. But Matar wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps and volunteers himself and his beloved camel, Hofira, for the next race. When he comes in second, his family sells Hofira to the rival team—which happens to be owned by Jasser. Refusing to be separated from her, Matar is forced to ride for Jasser. In the races that follow, the stakes become higher and higher. Set against the backdrop of the Arabian desert, Hajjan, the second film from Abu Bakr Shawky (Yommedine, SIFF 2019) offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of camel racing, one of the region’s oldest and most popular sports. “Camels are adored by their jockeys,” a Bedouin camel herder sings at the beginning of the film, which is, at its heart, a moving account of the bond that can develop between human and animal.

SIFF: The Burdened (Yemen)
2024-05-13 20:00 - 21:00 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
