‘Exigent Times’: Konrad Aderer’s Enemy Alien
In April 2002, police and immigration officers arrested Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti’s at his Queens apartment, launching a two-year legal saga that—according to Enemy Alien, a documentary about his case–saw him placed in solitary confinement for eight months, beaten, denied crucial thyroid medications, and threatened with deportation. Ordering his release in 2004, a judge called his treatment “Kafkaesque.”
The film, screened last night at Anthology Film Archives before the tenth anniversary of 9/11, chronicles the struggle of activists, friends, and lawyers to free Abdel-Muhti. It is part of an ongoing project by Third World Newsreel, which aims to bring attention to the mistreatment of minorities and immigrants in the wake of 9/11, and was shown following a series of related shorts. Read More
