A Show for Short Attention Spans

OneMinutePeople.com »

Written by: Ali Imran Zaidi »
Directed by: Fred Zara » & Ali Imran Zaidi
Featuring Music by: Brad Sucks »

Synopsis:

Caught in the space between two cultures, a young man navigates the gray world of love, Arab American style.

1080p XDCAM EX (Blu-ray, HDCam, DigiBeta, DVCam, DVD, MiniDV Available) / 8:50

Writer / Director

Ali Imran Zaidi

Synopsis:

An American Muslim ponders, discusses and ruminates on his position in America, and the decline of his people in western civilization. A quiet sequence of imagery and poetic words presents a first-hand account of a life, experience and voice heavily underexposed in a time when such voices ought to be heard.

24p MiniDV (BetaSP, DVCam, DVD, MiniDV Available) / 07:25

Writer / Director

Ali Imran Zaidi

The Zara Brothers’ feature documentary Average Community will have its official World Premiere this month at the CMJ Film Festival. Advanced screenings of the gritty punk-rock docu-memoir have already garnered excellent buzz in Orlando, where the film played to an invitation-only crowd at Central Florida’s premier arthouse cinema, the Enzian Theater.

We will all be there to represent!

Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, a post-industrial wasteland of abandoned factories, neglected row houses and urban decay. Trenton is a relic of America’s once-thriving manufacturing economy, the kind of city most of us have long since forgotten. But for Fred Zara, a 30-something family man living an average suburban life near downtown Orlando, it’s not so easy a place to forget.

Growing up in Trenton in the mid-1980s, Fred went by the name of Fred Fatal, played drums in a punk-rock band called Prisoners of War, and was filled with so much teen angst that he managed to get himself kicked out of high school before reaching the 10th grade.

“Average Community” follows Fred on a 900-mile journey back to his hometown to confront his troubled past, and the troubled people in it, in the hopes of understanding how the person he was made him into the person he is. Fred is joined by his two older brothers, one a disheartened New York journalist, the other a free-spirited Seattle musician, as he reunites with old friends, revisits painful memories and tries to make sense of what it meant to grow up in a dying city.

Director: Fred Zara

Visit the official Average Community site »

Watch it NOW on Amazon Video on Demand! »

Must pitch Dog Tags to his people. What’s Dog Tags, you say? …

Update!

We’ve won the Special Jury Prize! Congrats to all the cast and crew; the whole small band of criminals. A new laurel (coming soon) to post on the Two in the Bush» page!

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We screened at the Florida Music Festival’s Indie Film Jam» last night, and it went great. Happy crowd, John Thiesen was colorful as always, A.D. Fred Zara accompanying, and the Q&A was personal and enjoyable. My single biggest reward (and all I really ever want) is when a person comes up after a screening and says it made them think differently about the subject. What in God’s name else does a filmmaker want? Give me one in every crowd and I’ll do this forever.

I saw another film there which really stood out to me. It was definitely a strange one, but I found myself somehow completely identifying with it. I don’t know what that says about me exactly, but much love to them. The film was And Everything Was Alright», starring… well, a bear.

Tonight is the closing party. Hope to meet up with some of the other filmmakers  before it’s all over. Here’s to next year!

If everything you throw away comes back to you…

Director: Banks Helfrich

Visit WhoIsBanksHelfrich.com »

Synopsis:

IN A LAND beset by confusion, IN A TIME just like the present, ONE MAN is presented with life, the universe and everything. And does nothing.

24p MiniDV (BetaSP, DVCam, DVD, MiniDV Available) / 09:30

Writer / Director

Ali Imran Zaidi