Film screening and panel discussion

Arshad Khan’sThreadbare will be screened with the short film The Good Son as the final films in Noor’s Our Home and Native Land? film festival, followed by a discussion on the application of Canada’s immigration and security policies post-9/11.

Date: Sunday June 7, 2009
Time: 2:15 – 4:15 p.m.
Location: Auditorium, Noor Cultural Centre
Admission: See the film festival’s main page

The Films

Arshad Khan, a concerned citizen, takes matters into his own hands when he realizes that the media have remained silent regarding the atrocities carried out in Canada in the name of “National Security”. Using his own narrative, Khan takes us back to the summer of 2003, when 23 Pakistani and one Indian men were arrested by Canadian Police and Immigration under “Project Thread” – a purported anti-terror investigation. The charges crumbled under scrutiny and the men were quietly deported. Threadbare tells the story of how these seemingly harmless and unremarkable men spent two to five months in a maximum-security prison outside of Toronto and became the focus of Canada’s notorious post-9/11 terror case.

Threadbare examines the ideas of “security” and “citizenship” in a first world democracy in the post-9/11 world order. Khan leaves no avenues unexplored. In Threadbare he challenges the status quo and demands accountability not only from the Canadian authorities in general, but from the Muslim community in particular.

The Good Son was written, directed, and produced by Toronto filmmaker Amar Wala. This short drama tells the true story of a young Egyptian boy who is forced to act as a translator as Canadian authorities interrogate his father.

The Panelists

Chantal Sundaram, activist featured in Threadbare
Matthew Behrens, activist
Amina Sherazee, lawyer and activist