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ABOUT THE FILM
Salam Neighbor is an award-winning film and campaign to connect the world to refugees. The film documents the experiences of American filmmakers Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple when they lived among 85,000 Syrians in Jordan's Za'atari refugee camp. The filmmakers, who were the first allowed by the UN to register and set-up a tent inside a refugee camp, spent a month in Za'atari to cover what the UN Refugee Agency calls the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis.
Watch the Trailer: http://livingonone.org/salamneighbor/
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
SALAM DARWAZA: The daughter of Palestinians working in Saudi Arabia, Salam grew up alongside the children of American oil drillers, with one foot in the Arab world and one in the West. Her unique life experience has made her a human bridge, able to connect two sides of what may be the world’s widest cultural gap. Salam’s passion for film and storytelling and her ability to connect two disparate worlds gave rise to 1001 MEDIA, a production company she co-founded to use the power of film to initiate more positive dialogue between the Middle East and the West. She produced the documentary film, Salam Neighbor, the story of two Americans who deliberately head to the edge of war, just seven miles from the Syrian border, to live among 85,000 refugees in Jordan’s Za’atari camp. As the daughter of refugees and someone who was raised in host countries, her life experience was an inspiration point for the film, allowing her to lend a voice of Arab authenticity and speak from a personal perspective on the current refugee crisis.
In July of 2015, Salam was honored by the U.S. Department of State for her efforts as a Muslim woman storyteller who is working to challenge negative stereotypes depicted in the media. She continues to work with the State Department, convening with other filmmakers, writers, artists, journalists and comedians to share more positive stories from the Muslim community. Salam has been a member of several panels on using the power of storytelling to bridge cultures. She has spoken about both filmmaking and the refugee crisis, appearing alongside the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, the Jordanian Ambassador, the Lebanese Ambassador, and the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.
LILIAN ALBA, the former Vice-Chair of the Refugee Forum of LA, is the Director of International Institute of Los Angeles’ (IILA) Local Integration and Family Empowerment (LIFE) Division. She has been with IILA for over 17 years and is responsible for the management of federal and state funded contracts and supervises a team of 25. For the past decade she has been working with refugees, unaccompanied minors, and international survivors of human trafficking. IILA resettled over 714 refugees in 2016. IILA’s projection for the current year is to resettle 860 refugees from various countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Central America. Some of the services and support provided to newly arrived refugees include housing, basic needs (food, household items, clothing), giving refugees referrals within their community, provide community orientation, and basic employment services.
Cost : Free and Open to the Public
Related Document:
Salam-Neighbor-Flyer-sj-lri.pdfSponsor(s): Burkle Center for International Relations, Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA Residential Life, The Generation (http://the-generation.net/), UCLA Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment