Tribeca Film Festival in Qatar

American film producer, Jane Rosenthal and actor Robert DeNiro founded the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2002, in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Manhattan.  

There mission is “to enable the international film community and the general public to experience the power of film by redefining the film festival experience”. 

I love how Ali Jaafar from Variety puts it “Qatar is joining the Middle East film gold rush.” Executives from Qatar Museums Authority, an organization dedicated to developing cultural initiatives in the country have made a deal with Tribeca fest co-founders to launch Tribeca Film Festival Doha in November next year. 

Read Ali Jaafar’s article in Variety

Four Christmases

Last night, I saw the romantic comedy, Four Christmases, starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. Both play a happily unmarried, upscale San Francisco couple and every Christmas they ditch there families for a fun-filled holiday in some exotic location.  But, their flight got cancelled, they had to embark in four christmases.  The film will give you a laugh attack, perfect timing since people are stressed out over the worlds economic uncertainty.  Vaugh is naturally hilarious–I keep forgetting that he makes awesome films. Witherspoon is a delight in this film as well. Vaughn and Witherspoon make a better couple thank with Jennifer Aniston in the Breakup (tho, I did love that movie).  Four Christmases highlights how we fall into relationships so that we can escape from our pasts and our family’s dysfunctions. Tho, we learn that Christmas without a family is never the same.