Popular Ammani-born female poet Suhair Hammad is starring in Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir's first feature film Salt of this Sea (Le Sel De La Mer / Milh Hada Al-Bahar). The film has been officially selected to the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard. Two talented and beautiful Arab women make Arab cinema history. "Jacir's film tells the story of 24-year-old Soraya who grew up in a Palestinian worker and refugee community in New York. One day she discovers that her grandfather's hard-earned savings since his exile in 1948 are frozen in a bank in Jaffa, Palestine. This information prompts her to fulfill her long-held dream of returning to Palestine." It's noteworthy that one of Annemarie's producers is no other than Hollywood star Danny Glover. RELATED LINKS Swiss Films http://www.swissfilms.ch/detail_f.asp?PNr=2146533355 The Poetry of Suhair Hammad http://SuheirHammad.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3S8do-Gimc&feature=related Variety http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117970519.html?categoryid=13&cs=1 http://www.variety.com/VR1117984500.html Cannes Film Festival '08 (PDF file) http://www.festival-cannes.fr/assets/Pdf/General/pdf-9135.pdf Philistine Films http://www.philistinefilms.org/page1.html...

Written By: Wendy Merdian March holds one of my favorite holidays, ‘Mothers Day’. My children have been whispering little hints of the projects they have been making, precious creations of crayon, glitter, glue-stick and stickers. My husband will present me with a nice gift for the kitchen to make my job there easier or prettier. I will never forget a ‘Mothers Day Gift’ I was given one year by a friend: a week’s work of ‘maid service’. It seemed like a dream come true in those foggy, fuzzy days of pregnancy, non-sleeping babies and busy toddlers. But by the end of that week, I was more exhausted from having a stranger in the house than the house-keeping. She didn’t speak any of the languages I spoke, had a different definition of ‘clean’, and a VERY different concept about child-care! I found it very strange to have someone hovering...

Written By: Naseem Tarawnah What will the Arab world look like in 2025? Over a hundred people from across the Arab world were in Dubai for a few days to discuss life in the year 2025. It's part of an initiative created by the British Council and Young Arab Leaders, where delegations have come together to analyze three main scenarios: a hyperlinked world, a sustainable world, and a multi-polar world. Luckily, Lina and I were part of the 6-member Jordanian delegation. It's not a conference; it's really a workshop, and I pretty much mean that literally. Young people are leading the discussion and the debate. What's being discussed is linked to everything from education and health, to conflict in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. Engaging with all these people from across the region has been an amazing experience. We often forget how different every Arab country is. Our...

Amman en Classique Presents Florian Billot at the Royal Cultural Center, 8PM on Thursday 17 April 2008. ...

Cultural Jordanian Francophone Association presents L’Ecole du Diable A play by the French writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt Directed and subtitled into Arabic by Dr. Wael Rabadi, Al al-Beit University On 19, 20, 22, and 23 April, at 7 p.m., French Cultural Center To reserve your place, please call 461-2658 Tickets are 2JD will be on sale the evening of the presentations....

Picture taken in Farah Ghunaim...

As spring begins to take its course throughout the Kingdom, Jordanian bloggers have had a lot to talk about these past two weeks. HM Queen Rania has become a vlogger, after launching her own YouTube channel with a video that seeks to battle stereotypes that have plagued the Arab world. Global Voices covered the early reactions by Jordanian bloggers, but the Queen's initiative has since picked up steam on the local blogosphere, as the video yields over 2,000 comments and nearly 1 million views in just over a week. Eman hopes the initiative will be fruitful but is annoyed by a few things:

"What I find upsetting on the other hand is the fact that some of the replies are being offensive, attacking the idea and urging the Queen to address Jordanians rather than the west! to the ones who think this way I say:...