27-year-old Imran quit his advertising gig in a quixotic attempt to take over his father’s halal slaughterhouse in Queens. Five years after the film A Son’s Sacrifice documented that journey, Imran’s business is thriving and some of the city’s most innovative chefs and butchers are sourcing their meat at Imran’s pick-your-own slaughterhouse. Dan Ross-Leutwyler from Fatty ‘Cue, Jake Dickson from Dicksons Farmstand, and Tom Mylan from The Meat Hook all discuss the state of the meat industry in NYC today and how the Islamic approach toward eating animals resonates with them.
A Son’s Sacrifice directed by Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed, USA, 2007, 26 minutes, digital projection
When 27-year-old Imran Uddin struggles to take over his father’s halal slaughterhouse during the annual Qurbani holiday, he leads the local Muslim community in a ritual that tests his devotion to his family and his faith.
Also Screening:
Bronx Princess directed by Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed, USA, 2008, 38 minutes, digital projection
This documentary follows headstrong 17-year-old teenager Rocky’s journey as she leaves behind her mother in New York City to reunite with her father, a chief in Ghana, West Africa. Filmed over the tumultuous summer between high-school and college, Bronx Princess tells Rocky’s coming-of-age story. By confronting her immigrant parents’ ideas of adulthood, Rocky reconciles her African heritage with her dream of independence. The subject of the film, Rocky Otoo, will discuss how her life has changed since rediscovering her royal roots and graduating from college in the US.
Yoni Brook is a film director and cinematographer. He regularly directs and shoots documentaries for PBS broadcast: ‘Bronx Princess’ (POV), ‘A Son’s Sacrifice’ (Independent Lens), and ‘The Calling’ (Independent Lens), with Musa Syeed. His directoral debut, A Son’s Sacrifice, was named Best Documentary Short by the International Documentary Association (IDA) and the Tribeca Film Festival. Brook is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and was selected to attend the CPB/PBS Producers Academy at WGBH and the Berlinale Talent Campus Doc Station workshop. He served as an adjunct at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and as an instructor at the Barefoot Workshops in the Mississippi Delta.
Musa Syeed has co-directed/produced the documentaries A Son’s Sacrifice (Best Short Doc, Tribeca and IDA Awards) and Bronx Princess (Berlinale, POV 2009) with Yoni Brook. He is currently finishing his first feature narrative film Valley of Saints, shot in Kashmir, for which he was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Award for his screenplay and a National Geographic All Roads grant. He recently completed production of a new documentary, 30 Mosques/30 Days, for which he also developed an interactive component at the ITVS/Mozilla Hackathon. Syeed was a Fulbright Fellow in Cairo, Egypt.
Makkah Market is one of the most trusted Halal Meat suppliers in the US that provides food permitted under the Islamic Dietary Guidelines with assurance of delightful flavor.
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