Can you believe it?!

We are just starting our 12th year serving greater Los Angeles. Don Heckman wrote the first LA Times article about us, positively reviewing our first public program, in a Calendar review published June 25, 2001. (We received another thumbs-up review in December 2001 by theatre critic Don Shirley and many more LA Times articles since.) 

The fourth season of the New Voices in Middle Eastern Cinema series will present as many as two dozen features, documentaries and short films in Los Angeles and Orange County, to foster a greater understanding of the Middle East and North Africa, and to afford provocative opportunities for meaningful dialogue, while working with major partners including the Arab Film Festival, UCLA, USC, Chapman University, the University of California at Irvine, and others.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 14 2013 9:40pm - 11:30pm

Price: 

$13 for all regular screenings, conversations & talks
$11 for Film Independent members
$20 for Gala Screenings & Nights at the GRAMMY
$18 for Film Independent Members
$5 for all Future Filmmaker Showcase screenings(High School Programs)
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Regal Cinemas 14, Fri, Jun 14th 9:40pm; Regal Cinemas 12, Tue, Jun 18th 7:40pm
1000 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90015
tel. 213.763.6070

LA Film Independent with support from the Levantine Cultural Center presents Annemarie Jacir's new feature,When I Saw You (Lamma Shoftak) as part of the International Showcase, on June 14 (Jordan, 2012, 93 mins). The film is in Arabic with English subtitles. (Also screens June 18.)

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 13 2013 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

$10 advance, $8 members/students, $12 at the door.
RSVPs strongly recommended as refreshments will be served.
Call 323.413.2001
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Laguna Hills Community Center
25555 Alicia Pkwy
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
Info line 949.707.2680

A powerful recent documentary, narrated by Alice Walker, makes a reasoned argument comparing the South African apartheid that ended in the 1990s with today's relationships between Jews and non-Jews in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Israelis and Palestinians, controversial foes, two peoples locked in an inescapable relationship. But can Israel be "the only democracy in the Middle East" when rights for Arabs in Israel and the Occupied Territories are unequal? The Levantine Cultural Center presents a one-night only screening of Roadmap to Apartheid, cosponsored by Ms. Bana Hilal, Souhail Toubia, MD, the Council on American Islamic Relations of Greater Los Angeles and the Cousins Club of Orange County. The film will be followed by a public conversation. Light refreshments served. Tickets $10 advance/$8 members, $12 at the door. RSVP to 323.413.2001.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 11 2013 7:30pm - 9:30pm

Price: 

Free to the public; advance reservations required: 323.413.2001
or email rsvp@levantinecenter.org

Where: 

Laemmle’s Royal Theatre
11523 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90025
(a few blocks west of Westwood)

The Levantine Cultural Center, Cohen Media and director Ziad Doueri (West Beirut, Lila Says) invite you to a special preview screening of the internationally award-winning feature film The Attack, based on the best-selling novel by Yasmina Khadra. A film panel follows the screening with actor Karim Saleh (who co-stars in the film), and moderator Jordan Elgrably. This special screening is cosponsored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Hollywood Bureau.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 4 2013 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Price: 

Free to the public, donations gratefully accepted;
signed copies of "Wrestling" $20
RSVPs 323.413.2001 or rsvp@levantinecenter.org

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90035-2657
Between La Cienega & Fairfax
street parking or in underground CVS lot (till 10 pm only!)

Jewish Voice for Peace-Los Angeles presents an intimate evening with the rabbi Newsweek Magazine named one of the top 25 pulpit rabbis in America, author of the new book Wrestling in the Daylight, A Rabbi's Path to Solidarity with the Palestinians. Says Diana Buttu, "Brant Rosen's book is a journey of a rabbi who moves from believing in liberal Zionism, to questioning it to eventually abandoning it, in favor of humanist values of equality for all, irrespective of religion."

Brant Rosen is a graduate of UCLA, a congregational rabbi at Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston IL, and co-chair go the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

May 30 2013 8:00pm - 10:00pm

Price: 

$10 advance, $15 at the door
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
Between La Cienega & Fairfax
street parking

Get some comic relief and laugh about the Middle East with one of L.A's hottest comedy group, the Sultans of Satire, in a special performance featuring Middle Eastern comics with guest star K-von. The Sultans of Satire are seriously funny-if you love to laugh, if you need to laugh, you'll appreciate this show with its satirical insights and fresh perspectives on American and Middle Eastern life. The humor is universal; the comedans hail from the Middle East and North Africa! This show's cast features Noël Elgrably, Zara Mizrahi, Sammy Obeid and Mona Shaikh, with specal guest K-von. The Sultans of Satire is the longest-running Middle Eastern stand-up comedy show in the U.S. Features some of the best young stand-up comedians today from diverse faiths. This show cosponsored by Freedom Theatre West. Tickets/info 323.413.2001. Watch video clips at sultansofsatire.com.

[Los Angeles-MAY 1, 2013] On Friday, May 17, progressive comedienne/actor and activist Roseanne Barr presents "Mideast Masters of Jazz," a progressive be-bop quintet starring sax maniacs Gilad Atzmon and Zane Musa, performing together LIVE for the first time. The event will be hosted at The Mint in Los Angeles, accompanied by some of the best be-bop musicians in Los Angeles. To be sure, jazz as well as rock, heavy metal, hip hop and blues are all-American music originals, but they are genres that are constantly being challenged and reinvented by swingers in the Middle East-by composers, singer-songwriters and musicians who are both natively Middle Eastern but strongly western in their tastes and travels.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

May 23 2013 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

$10 advance, $8 members/students, $12 at the door.
RSVPs strongly recommended as refreshments will be served.
Call 323.413.2001
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Laguna Hills Community Center
25555 Alicia Pkwy
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
Info line 949.707.2680

Imagine that you had been switched at birth with a baby from another family...and just found out...

The Levantine Cultural Center will present the feature film The Other Son at the Laguna Hills Community Center on Thurs.., May 23, 7:00 pm. The Other Son is an unusually provocative "switched at birth" tale that captures the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. French director Lorraine Levy presides over an excellent international cast (the film is in Arabic, Hebrew, French and English with subtitles) that effectively conveys all the emotion wrought from the pain and joys of family drama. The screening will be followed by a public conversation with filmmaker-educator Mildred Lewis (bio follows below). Light refreshments will be served. This screening is consponsored by Ms. Bana Hilal, Souhail Toubia, MD, the Council on American Islamic Relations of Greater Los Angeles and the Cousins Club of Orange County.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

May 17 2013 7:00pm - 8:00pm

Price: 

$5 general admission

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
Between La Cienega & Fairfax
street parking

Join us for a film that follows a flourishing year in the life of one of modern music's greatest saxophonists and one of Europe's most controversial public speakers. Gilad and all that Jazz is a portrait of one of the modern era's best saxophonists; a man who has stolen hearts with the sounds of his sax and angered many with his political activities. The films screens 7 pm, Fri, May 17, prior to a rare concert, 9 pm next door at The Mint, with Gilad Atzmon and Zane Musa, Mideast Masters of Jazz.