Join us in commemorating the life and work of Israeli actor, director, filmmaker, and political activist Juliano Mer-Khamis, murdered in Jenin on April 4, 2011. Mer-Khamis was born and raised in Nazareth. His father, Saliba Khamis was a Palestinian-Israeli and his mother, Arna Mer was a Jewish Israeli, while Mer-Khamis identified himself as "100 percent Palestinian and 100 percent Jewish." He acted in Israeli television, theater and foreign films including his latest roles in Salt of this Sea (2008) and Miral (2010).
In 2003 Mer-Khamis produced and directed the film Arna's Children that documented his mother's project to use theatre and the arts to address children's trauma, chronic fears and depression in Jenin during the First Intifada. The Stone Theatre, built as part of Arna's project, was destroyed during the Israeli invasion of Jenin in 2002. Continuing his mother's work, Mer-Khamis built the Freedom Theater in 2006, the only professional venue for theatre and multimedia in the northern sector of the West Bank. Since then, the theater has produced many plays, including Men in the Sun, Animal Farm, and Alice in Wonderland.
Mac Lojowsky began working with Juliano Mer Khamis and the Freedom Theatre in 2006. In 2007 he lived and worked in the West Bank, teaching classes in playwrighting and journalism to the children of the Jenin Refugee Camp. Mac's plays have been performed on the stages and streets of Los Angeles, Moscow, San Fransisco, Jenin and Cleveland, Ohio. His investigative journalism articles have covered such topics as the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, the 2009 Pittsburgh G8 protests and nuclear waste on Western Shoshone lands. Publishing credits include: Z Magazine, the Earth First! Journal, the Cleveland Plain Dealer as well as the anthologies Voices from the WTO and Working Hard for the Money: Stories of Working Lives. He attended Kent State University and graduated from the Evergreen State College in 2000. Mac holds a journeyman carpenter's card from the United Brotherhood of Carpenters #1148. He currently lives in Ojai, California and continues to work with the Freedom Theatre.
Cost : Free and Open to the Public
JohannaRomero
(310) 825-1455
romero@international.ucla.edu Click
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