Films

Current projects accessed via Current tab on top right.

The Painter of Rust, 2025 (in submission to film festivals)

Documentary about artist Hani Hourani and his relationship to painting and photography. As we explore his work, we learn about how he managed being an artist, writer, and activist in his lifetime. You can see a short excerpt here. 40 minutes. Premiere at the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, Amman Jordan, Nov. 12, 2025 (see Current)

Inside/Outside, 2011

Short video piece from my balcony in Cairo, commissioned for “Vital” program of FEMLINK

What is Natural Contains Variety, 2006

14-minute single channel video installation that explores landscape and identity in Jordan.

From Here to There, 2003

Experimental documentary about a child’s imaginary space travel and the parallel wanderings of a traveler through Cairo during a moment preceding the 2003 war in Iraq. 34 minutes.

Far From You, 1996

Experimental documentary that explores the aura of Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum through her mediated image, its degeneration through analog copying, and the possibilities of borrowed nostalgia.   27 minutes, 16mm film. Recipient of New Visions Certificate of Merit from the San Francisco International Film Festival (1996).

Mentioned in The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses (Duke University Press, 2000) and Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image (MIT Press, 2015) by Laura U. Marks.

Lawrence of the Lambs, 1996

Valentino meets T.E. Lawrence and Buffalo Bill in a short experimental piece starring the late artist Jerome Kaja in the Castro Theatre, San Francisco. 6 minutes, 16mm film. Online version is not currently available.

trip/ballade, 1993

Traveling matte of belly dancers across cactus gardens and urban spaces becomes a metaphor for intercultural passage. 12 mins, 16mm film.