Event

LOCAL FEATURE: Silk Road Rising Shorts

Silk Road Rising, a Chicago-based theatre company that promotes playwrights of Asian American and Middle Eastern American backgrounds, will be screening premieres of Jamil Khoury's short films both/and and The Balancing Arab and his documentary film Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness at Catalyst Ranch this October. The three films, although aesthetically quite different and with varied themes, are deeply rooted in Chicago, and share recurring themes of confronting and overcoming adversity as a minority.

both/and - A semi-autobiographical short video play by Jamil Khoury, both/and disrupts the dictates of either/or and us vs. them, imagining identities that are holistic and non-fragmented.

Not Quite White - A documentary film that explores the complicated relationship of Arab and Slavic immigrants to American notions of whiteness.

The Balancing Arab - An online video play by Jamil Khoury which tells the story of an Irish American personal fitness trainer and her once morbidly obese Arab American client.