OUTFEST 2015: A GAY GIRL IN DAMASCUS -- THE AMINA PROFILE

A scene from A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile.

When she is not there

By Miranda Inganni

In 2011, Sandra Bagaria, a Frenchwoman living in Canada and Amina Abdallah Arraf, a Syrian-American woman living in Damascus, Syria, meet online and begin courting one another. They sext, encourage each other’s creativity, and forge a bond that spans the thousands of physical miles separating them. They fall in love.

With Bagaria's support, Arraf starts a blog called “A Gay Girl in Damascus” as an outlet for her LGBT activism against the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was already cracking down on Syrian protesters.

Already out to her family, Arraf posted daily (and sometimes more often than that) about attending protests and the struggle she faces. After the secret police come to arrest her one night, Arraf's father (knowing his political connections will serve him well) stands up for his daughter and refuses to let them take her away. In response, Arraf pens a piece entitled, “My father, the hero.” Bagaria, concerned, but proud of her girlfriend, reposts the piece on social media and the press picks it up.

From there Arraf becomes a poster child for an underrepresented community struggling against a despicable government. Bagaria and Arraf continue their long-distance love affair despite Arraf's warnings that her phone has been tapped and she is being watched all the time. Eventually, Sandra’s worst fears are confirmed with she finds out Amina has been abducted. Radio silence.

Spurred by this twist in events, Sandra reaches out to the online activist community, reporters and even the US state department in hopes of tracking down Arraf. And then a strange thing happens. No one can find her.

Travelling around the globe to talk with folks who had been online friends of Arraf's, plus others who were now simple trying to discover the truth behind the mystery, Bagaria unravels a truth that is stranger than fiction.

Directed by Sophie Derespe, A Gay Girl in Damscus: The Amina Profile painstakingly exposes a selfish hoax perpetrated by a manipulative and duplicitous ass. Unfortunately, but perhaps deliberately, the documentary does not explore the many layers of psychologically fuckedupness (clinical term) going on here. Nevertheless, The Amina Profile is told with tact, suspense and tenderness.

 

 

The Amina Profile screens at Outfest Film Festival: July 17, 5 p.m., DGA 2. For more information: Amina.

 

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LAFF 2013: AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY

Grace Lee Boggs in American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs.

Lee winding road

By Ed Rampell

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggsis engagingly, wittily directed by Grace Lee. No relation to her documentary’s subject, Lee first stumbled upon Boggs a decade ago while making another nonfiction film, 2005’s The Grace Lee Project.

The director appears onscreen in American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee, but the focus remains fixed on Boggs. Lee has a good film sense and her techniques run the gamut, from naturalistic talking heads footage -- including of Bill Moyers, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Danny Glover -- to the imaginatively cinematic. For example, in sharp contrast to most longwinded leftwing intellectuals, Lee humorously sums up Hegel and Marx in 30 second montages, and creatively uses reverse motion historical news clips to represent going back in time for this biopic about Boggs.

Boggs attended the LAFF screenings in her wheelchair, took part in Q&As with Lee and appeared on Tavis Smiley’s PBS talk show on June 21. An inspiration on- and offscreen, this radical icon remains full of grace -- bogged down she’s not, as she remains ready for the revolution -- whatever form it may take.

 

 

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