Women To Watch
Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Arts/Culture, Entertainment, Film/Video, Gay/Lesbian, International, New York, Women | Comments Off on Women To Watch
Two new films to see. Written by Shamim Sarif and produced by Hanan Kattan and Enlightenment Productions.
The World Unseen
In 1950’s South Africa, apartheid is just becoming institutionalized. Free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob her “colored” business partner. When she meets Miriam, a young traditional wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. When Amina helps Miriam’s sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever. The World Unseen is a captivating human drama, based on the highly acclaimed, multi award-winning novel by Shamim Sarif. Opens November 7th at the Quad Theatre in NYC
I Can’t Think Straight
In the upper echelons of traditional Jordanian society, Reema and Omar, wealthy Christian Palestinians, prepare for the marriage of their eldest daughter Tala.
But back at work in London, Tala encounters Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating Tala’s best friend Ali. The women have an instant effect on each other.
Tala sees something unique in the artless, clumsy, sensitive Leyla who secretly works to become a fiction writer. And Tala’s forthright challenges to Leyla’s cultural foundations begins a journey of self-awareness for Leyla.
As the women fall in love, Tala’s own sense of duty cause her to pull away from Leyla and fly back to Jordan where the preparations for an ostentatious wedding are well under way. As family members descend and the wedding day approaches, the pressure mounts.
When Ali and Leyla’s feisty sister Zara help throw Tala and Leyla together again, Tala finds that her own preconceptions of what love can be is the final hurdle she must jump to win Leyla back.
Screening November 7th @ 9:00 pm at the Museum of Arts and Design and November 9th @ 12:00 noon at the Tribeca Theater, NYC.
Immigrant Women Working As Dancers Say Job Is Dangerous
Posted on October 5, 2008
Filed Under Entertainment, New York, Women | Comments Off on Immigrant Women Working As Dancers Say Job Is Dangerous
As neon lights bathe the dance floor of the darkened nightclub, a group of young women from Latin America sit at tables, sipping water or soft drinks and waiting.For $2, the women will dance one song. For $10, they will dance a set. Forty dollars buys an hour of their time.
The scene plays out in immigrant neighborhoods across New York, providing a key source of employment for immigrant women and a haven for men seeking to stave off the loneliness of being far from home. It is a perfectly legal form of entertainment — there is no stripping, but plenty of hand-holding.
But some of the women say the clubs have a darker side. They complain about exploitative management, sexual advances from clients and even violence. A dancer was recently shot and killed in Queens, and one of the city’s largest dollar-dance venues is now the target of a federal lawsuit.
For many dancers, the stigma of working at the clubs is the most trying problem.
“Sometimes people or clients say we’re prostitutes, but we’re not. We dance,” said Tania Zarate, a dancer at one club in Queens. Full Story
Gay Elders’ Distinctive Challenges Up Close
Posted on October 5, 2008
Filed Under Gay/Lesbian, Health, New York, Women | Comments Off on Gay Elders’ Distinctive Challenges Up Close
photo: Mary Altaffer
Frank Carter was once a globe-trotting professional dancer; his world is smaller now. He battles multiple health problems, walks with a cane and rarely leaves his compact Manhattan apartment.
As an 86-year-old gay man, with no family nearby and many acquaintances long since dead, he’d seem a likely prospect for isolation.
Instead, he has kindled a deep, five-year friendship with Gigi Stoll, a fashion model-turned-photographer half his age. Stoll helps Carter with medical arrangements, writes to him when she travels overseas, and sat with him for six hours during his most recent hospitalization.
“The other guys in the hospital, no one was coming in to see them,” Carter said. “To get that gift, you have to be lucky.”
It’s not just luck. Stoll came into his life though a program that matches infirm gays and lesbians with volunteers who commit to making weekly visits.
Long overlooked by society at large, and even by younger gays, elderly gays and lesbians are emerging as distinct community, getting more help and attention as they confront challenges that differ in many ways from their heterosexual counterparts.
Advocacy groups say the estimated 2.5 million gay seniors in America are twice as likely to live alone, four times less likely to have adult children to help them, and far more fearful of discrimination from health care workers.
Many fear anti-gay animosity or bias at senior centers, in nursing homes and from health care providers. Some gay elders even keep their sexual orientation secret from the home health aides who may provide their only sustained company.
A watershed moment comes this month, when the AARP — the largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 — for the first time sponsors a major national conference focused on gay and lesbian aging. It’s being organized by SAGE (Service and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), the New York-based organization which counts Carter and Stoll among its thousands of clients and volunteers. Full Story
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