Event

University of Pennsylvania's
Cinema Studies Program and Theatre Arts Program
present
MUSLIM HERITAGES IN CINEMA AND THEATRE

Indonesian American Filmmaker
Fatimah Tobing Rony

Iranian American Playwright
Layla Dowlatshahi
 

Director, screenwriter, and producer Fatimah Tobing Rony will screen three of her short films, On Cannibalism (6 mins.), Treasure (2 mins.), and Jarocho Elegua (4 mins.). An Indonesian American who grew up in Washington, DC, after earning a PhD from Yale, Rony went on to earn an MFA from UCLA in film directing. Her book The Third Eye is about ethnographic and monster films. She is currently under contract to ABC to make her film Gracie Makes a Movie.

Penn students will read from the play The Waiting Room by dramatist Layla Dowlatshahi. An Iranian American who grew up in California, Dowlatshahi earned her MFA in playwriting from Goddard. In 2004, she was featured in a New York Times article. The Waiting Room (which takes place during the genocide and mass rapes of Muslims in Bosnia in 1992) premiered at Penn in 2004. Her play The Joys of Lipstick was produced at the Producers Club in NYC in 2003 and the Lark Theatre in NYC in 2005.

Both Rony and Dowlatshahi will speak to the audience about their artistic careers and about images of Muslim women in their works. They will take questions from the audience. A light reception will accompany the event, which is free of charge.