The 2008 New York Arab & South Asian Film Festival - March 5-16, 2008 at various venues like Tribeca Cinemas, Columbia University, Art in General, and NYU.

Alwan for the Arts, 3rd i NY, and the South Asian Women's Creative Collective are once again joining forces to bring New York audiences the best in recent features, docs, & shorts from North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and their diasporas.

Scheduled for March 5-16, 2008, the 2008 fest rolls out a slew of US and NY Premiere features that range from politically astute comedies to gritty, yet poignant examinations of urban poverty. An emerging theme amongst this roster of films is the multi-faceted nature of sexual desire in the Arab & South Asian world, stories of love and attraction marked by racial and class tension, war, religious restrictions, and the hardships of migration.

The NYASAFF is at the forefront of exploring and expanding otherwise unknown horizons in South Asian, Arabic and African film. The festival makes an enormous contribution toward informing New York audiences through access to images and representation that are not otherwise available through U.S. media outlets. In particular, the NYASAFF, provides opportunities to engage with fresh voices and personal visions of the troubled terrains of the Arab and Muslim world, as well as introduces U.S. audiences to the ground-breaking work of South Asia's emerging independent filmmakers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India.

This year's festival offers a number of intriguing themes and noteworthy films, including but not limited to the following:

- "In the Name of God" is an independent feature from Pakistan that has been surrounded by controversy since its 2007 release. This debut epic which won its director the Silver Pyramid award at the 2007 Cairo International Film Festival is about two brothers who are pop musicians in Lahore. The issue of pop music in relation to Islam caused extremists to protest the film and call for it to be banned. A court case ensued which called into question the role of music in Islamic practice.

- Controversial scholar, and Columbia University Professor, Joseph Massad, curates a series of films about Belly Dancing in Egyptian Cinema related to his latest book, "Desiring Arabs" which traces the intellectual history of sexual representation in Arab Culture.

- Leading Iranian film expert, Hamid Dabashi, will introduce his new book on Moshen Makmalbaf (director of Kandehar), Makhmalbaf at Large: The Making of a Rebel Filmmaker, at the NY Premier of his daughter, Hana Makmalbaf's, film Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame. Set in Bamian, the actual town where the Taliban’s destruction of cultural treasures sickened the world, Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame is an exotic and frightening journey into the minds of the children who live in that desolate area – and children affected by violence everywhere.

- Emmy-Award Winning actor Tony Shalhoub and Director Heshem Issawi will attend the NYC premiere of AmericanEast on March 15. Featuring Sayed Badreya (Three Kings and The Insider) and Kais Nashif (of Paradise Now fame), the film demonstrates, with both humor and raw emotion, how friendships are tested amongst diverse patrons of a Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles when the owner decides to partner with a Jewish businessman.

Festival Tickets are $12 for Adults, $8 for Students & Seniors, and are available through the fesitval website www.nyasaff.org or through Smarttix at (212)868-4444.