TND the National Desk

Finding the Culture in Pop Culture.

A nostalgia fueled rebirth of an online game and the economic and social collapse in a country conspire to turn the digital world into a battleground for survival.

Expedition uses the surrealist tool, an exquisite corpse, to explore the ideas of Birth, Dreaming, Friends, Kissing, Love, Magic and Immortality. Random subjects from the general public participated in unrehearsed storytelling moments playing from only the segment in the narrative chapter that came directly before theirs. The intimate and spontaneous nature of the project allowed participants freedom to be themselves or fictionalized characters - or both. The arch of each chapter proved to be personal, fantastical, comical and even heartbreaking at times. Bringing strangers together to make an absurd, artistic statement, Expedition takes you on an unexpected journey exploring archetypal moments of life.

News reporter, Baxter Mite, 'delves deep into a discovery' of the strange profession of Afterlife Law. Afterlife Lawyer, Walter Fancusso, of Fancusso, Fancusso, Fancusso, defends people who believe they are going to Hell. He argues their case before Satan and God. He lives in Long Island, New York, with his wife, Mary, and his son, Jesus. Baxter interviews him at home and at the Garden of the High Court of the Fourth Dimension. Fancusso's nemesis, Robert Hays, is also interviewed at his home in Brooklyn, New York and at his father's church in Virginia. He produces and uploads Public Service Announcements on the internet warning against Mr. Fancusso and the dangers of sinning. Mite probes their origins and intentions in this compelling news documentary.

Rabbit Hole examines the challenges of maintaining Emirati identity in the face of the top-to-bottom process of globalization. It problematizes the way in which many young Arabs increasingly get alienated from their own culture, and charts some of the reasons that contribute to this cultural alienation.