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My conversation with Palestinian filmmaker, director, writer, and teacher Rolla Selbak was an exchange of sweet and saltwater tides. I cried. Then she cried. Then I cried. And she cried. It was oceanic in its soulfulness, honesty, clarity, and Love offering for humanity. I had been yearning for this conversation since we met at the Los Angeles reading of the Gaza Monologues in January of this year (2024). I can't wait for you to listen to, feel, and be sown by this kinship river. Bless you.

Rolla Selbak is an award-winning filmmaker and Sundance alumna, with multiple works optioned for development at 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures Entertainment. She imprints her fresh point of view as a Palestinian American with deep, maternal roots in Jerusalem.

Her recent screenplay, CHOKE, was a 2022 Winner of The Black List, and was based on her award-winning short film of the same name, both telling the story of a Syrian refugee who dreams of becoming an MMA champion.

Other notable works include co-producing the Sundance 2017 short film AMERICAN PARADISE, which was later adapted into the Sundance-winning film LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO, and helming the internationally acclaimed feature film “Three Veils”, a first of its kind to confront homosexuality within the Muslim-American subculture.

She is currently embarking on her second feature film: THE VISITOR. Known as the Palestinian “Get Out”, the film is a psychological horror about a young Palestinian man who discovers that living life under an occupation can be just as sinister as the shapeshifting monsters in his grandmother’s folktales.

Selbak is the founder of the SAFINA FILMMAKER PROJECT, an initiative to raise the voices of Palestinian filmmakers through free artistic mentorship.

ROLLASELBAK.COM
@ROLLASELBAK (IG)

Sacred Conversations are periodic episodes of my podcast in which I reach out to people whose work and life inspire me, and we simply have an old fashioned phone conversation. No video. No scripted, transactional, extractive, one-sided interview dynamic. Just two people with a care and curiosity for each other’s journey, asking each other soulful questions, and enjoying the ancient, mutually healing art of listening deeply. Again, not an interview. A spiritual communion. The idea is for us to relax and enjoy an organic conversation, like over tea or breaking bread, and get to know each other along the way.

My books are available at jaiyajohn.com (thank you for purchasing directly from the author) and at booksellers worldwide. Audiobooks, eBooks, book specials, sleep stories, audio talks, apparel, and piano music are exclusively at my website. Thank you for posting your copies of my books on Instagram, tagging #jaiyajohn, encouraging others to purchase, posting readings of your favorite passages, and sharing online book reviews. My whole heart cries Grateful. jaiyajohn.com...

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