Join CPS and the School of the Arts for a screening of "Tel Aviv on Fire," directed by Sameh Zoabi and co-screenwritten by Zoabi with Dan Kleinman. A Q&A with Zoabi and Kleinman and James Schamus will follow the screening.
This event is co-presented by the Carla Kuhn Memorial Speaker Series.
RSVP here!
*Advance registration does not guarantee seating; early arrival is suggested.
Tuesday, December 3rd at 7PM
The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
Lenfest Center for the Arts
615 West 129th Street
New York, NY 10027
Free and Open to the Public
RSVP here!
SAMEH ZOABI
Sameh Zoabi was born and raised in Iksal, near the city of Nazareth. Zoabi graduated from Tel Aviv University with a dual degree in Film Studies and English Literature. Zoabi then received a Fulbright Fellowship to study Filmmaking at Columbia University, earning an M.F.A. in 2005.
Zoabi’s work has been shown in many international film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Sundance, Karlovy Vary, and the New York Film Festival. A selection of Zoabi’s notable work includes a short film titled Be Quiet (2005), for which received a prize at the Cannes Film Festival—Cinefondation Selection. His feature film debut, Man Without a Cell Phone (2010), won several audience awards as well as the Golden Antigone at the 2011 Montpellier Film Festival. Soon after, Zoabi wrote the original script of The Idol (2015), which had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Most recently, Zoabi premiered his feature film, Tel Aviv On Fire (2018) at Toronto Film Festival and the 75th Venice International Film Festival, where the film received The Orizzonti Award for Best Actor. Along with his work as a filmmaker, Zoabi developed a keen interest in academia. Currently, Zoabi teaches core classes in directing and screenwriting.
DAN KLEINMAN
Dan Kleinman has taught screenwriting at Columbia since 1996. His writing credits for the screen include the films Rage, starring George C. Scott; Zone Zero; and Tel Aviv on Fire. Awards to the screenplay of Tel Aviv on Fire include the Asia Pacific Screen Award for best screenplay of 2018; Best Screenplay at the Haifa, Odessa, and Monte Carlo film festivals; and the François Chalais Prize for screenwriting at the RCC Festival in Cannes. Dan has been script consultant on many films, among them Monsoon Wedding, Half of a Yellow Sun, and House of Hummingbird (Best International Film, Tribeca 2019). He was a mentor at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in Utah and at MAISHA, the lab for East African filmmakers founded in Uganda by Mira Nair. He has been a guest faculty member at La Femis in Paris, RITS in Brussels, Princeton, and Sarah Lawrence. At Columbia, he was chair of Film from 2000 to 2005 and served twice as acting dean of the School of the Arts (1998-99; 2001-2003).
JAMES SCHAMUS
James Schamus is an award-winning screenwriter (The Ice Storm), producer (Brokeback Mountain), and former CEO of Focus Features (Dallas Buyers Club, Lost in Translation, Milk, The Pianist). His feature directorial debut, an adaptation of Philip Roth’s Indignation, starring Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, and Tracy Letts, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival, and was released by Roadside Attractions. Schamus’ New York based production company, Symbolic Exchange, produced Kitty Green’s acclaimed feature documentary Casting JonBenet which had its world premiere at Sundance and launched on Netflix in 2017, and Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn which premiered in Cannes 2017 and was released summer 2018 by A24. Recent projects include Rhys Ernst’s trans comedy Adam (starring Margaret Qualley), released by Wolfe Media in August 2019; and Noble Jones’s The Tomorrow Man (starring John Lithgow and Blythe Danner), which was released May 2019 by Bleecker Street. Symbolic also premiered Andrew Ahn’s feature Driveways (starring Hong Chau and Brian Dennehy) at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival, and Kitty Green’s The Assistant (starring Julia Garner) at the 2019 Film Telluride Festival. Schamus is Professor of Professional Practice in Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory. James’ programming advice and his Q&A work with directors following screenings have been central to the success of Palestine Cuts, the CPS film series.