The Satellite Shooters - 16mm, Color, 16mins (2001) dir. Annemarie Kattan Jacir
Using the conventions of the Western genre, "The Satellite Shooters" satirically tells the story of Tawfiq, a young Palestinian boy in Texas trying to find his place in America, and The Kid, a local gunslinger. The film is a critique of the imagination that the Western arises from -- that fantasy land wherein masculine idealizations and racial hierarchies lead to the prevailing cowboy hero and his stunted sidekick. "The Satellite Shooters" is also a story of assimilation and the immigrant experience. Orientalism meets Occidentalism when Tawfiq and The Kid embark upon a mission to change the world. But things don't turn out like they do in the movies....
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