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1. Regal Winter Park Village A
   Monday, 4-16 8:30 pm
2. Regal Winter Park Village B
   Friday, 4-20 4:00 pm

Competition Documentary Features

The Sheik & I

This set-up could not be more perfect! Cinematic provocateur Caveh Zahedi (I Am a Sex Addict) is commissioned by the Sharjah Biennial to make a film on the theme “art as a subversive act.” Zahedi takes his family and a small crew to Sharjah (of the United Arab Emirates) with a vague notion of creating a documentary about traveling to Sharjah with his family and a small crew. Once in country, he discovers a schizophrenic nation. The elites like to believe they’re part of an enlightened Arab state, but as Caveh and his team improvise a mild farce, they are rebuffed by a nationalistic strain of self-censorship so deep nobody dares speak its name. As one local puts it, “In a country with no freedom of speech, you can’t say there’s no freedom of speech.” Caveh proceeds to do what Caveh does best—pressing the buttons of all, with squirm-inducing results. His bull-in-the-china-shop film is so perfectly “art as a subversive act” that it’s rejected by the Biennial and ordered destroyed. Caveh is threatened with arrest if he dares return to Sharjah. Similarly hilarious yet far more disturbing than the mega-hit Borat, THE SHEIK & I is a breathtaking display of filmmaking chutzpah that leaves one sputtering, “How could those Biennial folks have expected anything different from Caveh?”

Director Bio:
Caveh Zahedi (The Sheik & I) is an autobiographical American independent filmmaker whose films include I Am a Sex Addict (2005), In the Bathtub of the World (2001), I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore (1994), and A Little Stiff (1991).

PRECEDED BY

Meaning of Robots

DIRECTED BY MATT LENSKI
USA, 2011, 4 MIN
EAST COAST PREMIERE

Mike has been shooting a stop-motion robot sex film for more than 10 years. His miniature mechanical stars are starting to pile up.

Click here for the director’s bio.