Baffle Their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh

A writer on the street.

Beirut International Tango Festival

Promotional film for the 2010 Beirut International Tango Festival.

Pearls Beyond the Price

The story of two Qatari generations coming to grips with the inevitable tide of the 21st century and all that it will wash away in its wake.

Somos Buzos

A community surrounds the Santiago garbage dump in Dominican Republic that is named "Cienfuegos," or, 100 fires.

My Village, My Lobster

The powerful and harrowing story of the indigenous Miskito lobster divers along Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast who risk their lives diving for the region's most lucrative resource—the Caribbean spiny lobster.

Zubarah

Zubarah was an old vibrant pearl and fishing city that fell to ruins only 150 years ago, and is now being excavated.

Qatar: Books Unbound

The Universal Digital Library in Carnegie Mellon University is doing a massive digitization effort of rare books and libraries across the world.

Six Days in Kazakhstan

A short atmospheric piece about my 6 days in Kazakhstan on a preliminary trip to begin planning both ethnographic and marketing pieces for iCarnegie.

Film Archive

Vew Pearls Beyond the Price SELECT SCENES.

Pearls Beyond the Price is the story of a wise elder Qatari pearl trader and wood artisan and of his motorcycle-drag-racing thrill-seeking son and grandson — three Qatari generations coming to grips with the inevitable tide of the 21st century and all that it will wash away in its wake. Though change is inevitable — especially when a country discovers it has the second largest natural gas reserve in the world — what is kept and what is lost ultimately shapes a society’s present...and its future. The Islamic Art Museum currently holds an exhibit on pearl trading — once the mainstay of Qatar only 50 years ago. If Qatar’s recent past is already in its own museum, how are the Pearlman, and his sons, changing with the tide?

A natural pearl begins by a simple grain of sand embedded in an oyster shell. The irritation then forces the bivalve to isolate the intruder in endless layers of nacre and after what seems an eternity, a thing of beauty and great worth emerges. Patient struggle, sacrifice and tradition — these are what have made Abdullah and Qatar who and what they are. It can be argued that Abdullah and the cultural legacy of Qatar are the real pearls beyond the price.

Documentary film by Isabelle Carbonell.