Naveen Chaubal<\/a> (right) and producer Bryn Silverman<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGrey Is Good<\/p>\n
\n\tThe film is directed by Naveen Chaubal, who grew in neighboring Indiana as the son of Indian immigrants. At the Q&A, Chaubal explained his relationship with Yosef and his family grew out of a short film he made about a decade earlier.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThrough that process, we met Yosef and Azraa and their family. And that was when I started to see so many familiar dynamics and scenes play out going over to their house,\u201d he said. \u201cThe familiarity of the conversations between a father and son or a father and a daughter or a son and a mother, it felt so familiar and familial that it was just like, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s something here that needs to be shared.\u2019 And here we [were] in Kentucky, in Louisville, and we often don\u2019t see that as a backdrop. We often don\u2019t see Indiana as a backdrop. So, it just felt like there was something urgent in that respect to tell that story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Yosef](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tYosef and Azraa in \u2018Pinball\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tITVS\/Grey Is Good<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the film, Yosef and Azraa make plans to go to Egypt, a place they sense they could feel more free (perhaps unencumbered by the scrutiny that comes with being an Arab immigrant to the U.S.). Eventually, both make it to Cairo \u2013 Azraa first, followed by her brother, their time there documented by Chaubal. There are moments of humor in Pinball as the siblings razz each other.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe have a lot of sibling bickering, but I really do think that that trip made our bond a lot stronger, like inseparable. We are very close,\u201d Azraa commented. \u201cThat trip and working so closely with [producer] Bryn [Silverman] and Naveen as well, it really helped our relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tYosef Al Windawi and Azraa Al Windawi<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGrey Is Good<\/p>\n
\n\tPinball features an evocative, nontraditional score by composer Will Epstein, who also participated in the Q&A.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI worked on the short film [with Chaubal] and it was one of the first films I scored,\u201d Epstein noted. \u201cI made like probably four times as much music as is in this movie and we sort of whittled it down into this kind of very cohesive-feeling world. And so, it\u2019s been a really special process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a director\u2019s statement, Chaubal writes, \u201cAt its heart, Pinball is about becoming: becoming a man; becoming a brother; and becoming someone capable of holding both grief and possibility in the same body. Yosef\u2019s relationship with his sister, Azraa, hums with the familiar chords of siblinghood \u2014 antagonism and refuge intertwined. His relationship with his father, at once tumultuous and tender, traces the quiet and often unspoken labor of forgiveness. I hope audiences find themselves somewhere inside these relationships, recognizing in Yosef\u2019s journey the shape of their own crossings into adulthood.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhen we began this film, the world felt different. The story we were telling \u2014 of displacement, resilience, and belonging \u2014 seemed like one this country preferred not to see. Now it feels impossibly urgent. The reverberations of U.S. involvement in the Middle East are not abstract geopolitical echoes; they live in living rooms, in school hallways, in the private negotiations of families rebuilding themselves in unfamiliar landscapes. The long aftermath of war is carried in the nervous systems of young people asked to grow up too soon, to translate for their parents, to carry histories they did not choose.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tChaubal continues, \u201cAnd yet, Pinball is not a thesis on oppression. It does not seek to indict through spectacle. Instead, it offers Yosef a space \u2014 and perhaps a tool \u2014 for expression. The film resists framing him as an emblem or argument. He is not a symbol of policy. He is a young person discovering his body, testing his edges, negotiating interpersonal relationships and his autonomy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPinball is directed by Naveen Chaubal, who also served as cinematographer and editor. Bryn Silverman produced the film and contributed additional editing and cinematography. Consulting producers are Darcy McKinnon<\/a>, Faisal Azam, and Jannet Nu\u00f1ez. Protagonist Yosef Al Windawi also serves as associate producer. Pinball is executive produced by Carrie Lozano.<\/p>\n\n\tWatch a brief clip of Pinball here, featuring Yosef and his father, Mohammed. It begins with music from Epstein\u2019s score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. invasion of Iraq killed an untold number of people, possibly hundreds of thousands, and drove nine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270,153831,153832,153833],"class_list":["post-334433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-naveen-chaubal","tag-pinball","tag-true-false"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}