Me and Spike Lee Part 1

I must have landed in Abu Dhabi about the same time as Spike Lee. Maybe we were even on the same plane. I wouldn’t have noticed anyway. I was too busy gawking out the window at the dazzling display of the yellow luminosity with intermittently dispersed white radiance, all lined to perfection in an endless grid that seemed to simultaneously define and insult modern art on an astronomical scale. I stared down at the world’s new playground for the rich, not wanting to move from my seat and cursing myself for storing both my camera and my tampons in the overhead compartment.

My jaw hung open slightly, as it does from time to time when I’m either thinking very intently or daydreaming without any conscious sense of reality. I sealed my mouth and looked covertly to each side to make sure no one saw me ogling out the window like an orphan with her face pressed against the spotless glass of a bakery display case. I gave the corners of my mouth a little swipe with the back of my hand to make sure no drool had escaped, and I wondered how I would someday describe what I was seeing. It occurred to me I was on the final leg of a year log worldly, whirlwind adventure, and this was the somewhere between the climax and the falling action. I didn’t find Abu Dhabi. In fact, until someone presented me with the opportunity to attend the New York Film Academy there, I would have sworn I’d never heard of the place. That is until a friend later pointed out to me that Abu Dhabi was where Garfield always sent Nermal. In any case, Abu Dhabi found me. And as we coasted to a smooth desert landing, I thought. Why the hell am I here?

The first week of class at the New York Film Academy presented the students with three consecutive days of star-studded mingling. I managed to arrive in Abu Dhabi at the commencement of the first ever Middle East International Film Festival. It was a very long, overdue event, which attracted the attention of media personnel and filmmakers from everywhere. They came not only from the Persian Gulf but also the schmoozing studios of Hollywood, the classic avant-garde filmmakers of London and Paris and New York, where creative minds fancy themselves the personification of intellectual artistry. Among these attendees, was Spike Lee strait from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, an institution that prides itself on developing artistry, creativity and technical precision. Tisch also happens to be the arch nemesis of New York Film Academy (NYFA), an institution, I would later find out, that prides itself on having discovered that combining the words “New York” and “Film” could exploit the Hollywood delusions of spoiled, rich kids from all across the globe, who wouldn’t know hard work if it slapped them in the face, while successfully sucking millions out of the pockets of their parents.
Because of NYFA’s close ties with the festival organizers, students were invited to all the festivities, including the ceremony dinner at the legendary Shangri-La Hotel, where Spike Lee would be presenting the awards to all the Middle East International Festival competition winners.

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