East Window Presents
The Boulder Premier of Usama Alshaibi and lauren samblanet’s Trip Ziggurat
With guests: Carolina Ebeid, dena harry saleh, Ramzy Abueita, and Boulder-Nablus Sister City Project
TRIP ZIGGURAT
(2025, 14:05 minutes)
Directed by Usama Alshaibi
Produced by lauren samblanet and Adam Sekuler
Edited by Aaron Schillinger
Music by Raphique Barakat
A road trip to a Ziggurat in Colorado sparks connections between Arabs in the state. Filmmaker, Usama Alshaibi, embarks on a journey to the Crestone Ziggurat. His personal pilgrimage intertwines with the stories of other Arabs in Boulder who find ways of bringing their homelands to the state.
Starring
Paul Kloppenburg, Hanne Strong Njal Schold, Darci Meyers, Ramzy Abueita and Manal Jarrar
Join us after the screening:
• Q and A with Usama Alshaibi, lauren samblanet, and Ramzy Abueita
• Readings by Carolina Ebeid and dena harry saleh
• Presentation by Boulder-Nablus Sister City Project
$5.00 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Usama Alshaibi was born in Baghdad, Iraq and spent his formative years living between the United States and the Middle East. He’s an active filmmaker and artist, who works in documentary and fiction, often blurring the line between the two. His films have screened widely at underground and international film festivals, media exhibitions and museums. He’s received grants from organizations such as the MacArthur Foundation, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Playboy Foundation, and the Creative Capital Foundation for the Arts. His first feature documentary, Nice Bombs, which was shot in Baghdad right after the start of the United States invasion of Iraq, had a theatrical release in Chicago and New York, and a broadcast premiere on the Sundance Channel. His experimental narrative film Profane won several awards, including best feature film at the Boston Underground Film Festival. His second documentary feature, American Arab, had its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and was nationally broadcast on television through PBS World Channel. He’s been producing and directing short films and music videos since 1998. Some of his prominent short films include Soon, Here, The Desire, The Muslim Meme, Baghdad, Iowa, Allahu Akbar, Dream of Samarra and Dance Habibi Dance. Usama lived in Chicago for over 17 years and worked as a digital archivist at the Chicago History Museum, and as a radio host and producer for Chicago Public Media. Currently, Usama is a Teaching Associate Professor at Colorado State University. https://usamaalshaibi.com/
lauren samblanet is a hybrid writer who cross-pollinates with other forms of making & other makers of forms. While she studied poetry, they most often write essays and fiction that intermingle with poetics. She enjoys making interdisciplinary work utilizing performance, sound, video, visual art and writing. They are disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent, gender fluid, and queer. She received her MFA from Temple University, and currently resides in so-called Colorado, the ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute people. Punctum Books published her first book, like a dog. Some of their publications include: Wordgathering, A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault, FENCE, Passages North, Just Femme and Dandy, Dreginald, Entropy, Bedfellows, and The Tiny. lauren has collaborated with dancers and filmmakers. lauren is a teacher and guide, offering workshops, and creative process and project guidance through their passion project, reinventing creative process. Her dream is to guide other creators toward more embodied, pleasurable and emotionally safe creative processes that help their creative ideas thrive.
Carolina Ebeid is a multimedia poet. She is the author of Hide (Graywolf Press, 2026), You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior (Noemi Press, 2016) and the chapbook Dauerwunder: a brief record of facts (Albion Books, 2023). Her work has been supported by the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University, CantoMundo, the NEA, and a residency fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. Her work has been installed and screened at universities and galleries such as Stelo Arts in Portland, and Squeaky Wheel Film and Video Art Center. A longtime editor, she currently edits the multimedia site Visible Binary. Her current work explores the personal story of her family’s exilic and immigrant experience, the idea of home as an elsewhere, and the telepathic power of objects within the diasporas of Palestine and Cuba.
dena harry saleh is a queer and trans Muslim Palestinian living on the unceded lands of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples, as well as many other tribes, and works as a multi-modal artist and scholar. They are a second year PhD student whose research focuses on the creation and implications of queer and trans Palestinian cultural production. Their writing has been featured in Disability Visibility Justice (the blog of the late Alice Wong), American Quarterly, the Black, Indigenous & Trans of Color Histories Lab, Apogee Journal, Marathon Lit online magazine, and in an anthology of poetry called "A Free Palestine" they co-edited and published in 2025.
Ramzy Abueita is a nature-oriented creative, community builder, activist, and entrepreneur whose work is rooted in a deep reverence for the Earth and a passion for cultivating spaces of awe, beauty, and connection. Drawn to the intersection of art, science, and mysticism, he expresses a biophilic, earthen design sensibility that emphasizes warmth, intimacy, and harmony with the natural world. He is actively engaged in local creative and conscious culture, including visionary art, music, and ecstatic dance, and is known for fostering environments of openness, authentic expression, and collective experience. Ramzy is the founder of Myco Cafe, a business that integrates functional mushrooms into everyday ritual and community life, and played a prominent role in Colorado’s psychedelic decriminalization movement through his work with Decriminalize Nature, reflecting his broader commitment to community, ecological awareness, and cultural transformation. As a Palestinian American, Ramzy brings a strong and thoughtful political consciousness to his work and presence in community spaces, engaging with issues of identity, justice, and cultural dialogue with clarity and conviction.
The Boulder-Nablus Sister City Project (BNSCP) is a people-to-people initiative working to link citizens in Nablus, Palestine with those in Boulder, Colorado. The groups in both cities consist of students (middle-school, high-school & university), entrepreneurs, farmers, artisans, medical professionals, professors, directors of non-profits and cultural centers, artists, engineers, yoga teachers, and so much more. The Boulder-Nablus Sister City Project fosters relationships through cultural, educational and professional exchanges, inspiring lifelong friendships that promote understanding and peace through person-to-person “citizen diplomacy.” BNSCP offers humanitarian assistance to the Nablus community through projects such as donating an ambulance, opening a medical center, and donating a fire truck, most recently.
Don’t miss Trip Ziggurat on PBS Documentaries' Youtube channel
Thursday, July 9th, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/@PBSDocumentaries