This one comes via MTV Iggy. Hollywood with an international tilt usually comes with a butchered foreign accent, Chinese takeout and a hand full of ignorant claims about countries they can’t even pronounce correctly. The Whilred Interactive team put together an amusing project called “Let Hollywood Teach You Geography” poking fun at Hollywood’s ignorant social and cultural geography through mashing up over 40 clips from sunny Hollywood productions that mention countries the producers probably couldn’t even place on a map.

Lately, Japan’s reinterpreted the Dancehall music craze that’s swept the country in the footsteps of an already popular reggae fanbase. According to the Guardian, there’s less than a sizeable Jamaican population in the country, but Jamaican dancehall is very popular - obscure club nights and all - around the country. But it’s not the Jamaican artists that have helped spread the dancehall bug - there’s an authentic Japanese form of dancehall that’s growing in popularity, where it’s not unheard of some Japanese dancehall artists selling out stadiums.

Avatar :: Though visually breathtaking the movie has many issues in basic plot and storytelling, without even the problematic narratives about the noble savage, “primitive” native cultures and the way in which colonization, white privilege and white guilt is played out.

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?
Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it’s about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy.

Diaspora Youth Speak (DYS) is a project based in Toronto for youth who identify as part of a Diasporic community. DYS uses multi-media arts to explore themes of displacement and mobility to reflect on personal stories and the roles that we play in local and global contexts as Diasporic peoples– fostering leadership & participation; strengthening the voice of Diasporic youth.
Find out more…watch the video…

Chasing Mirrors is a multimedia/multi-medium based project focusing on youth identity in London. The exhibit itself is set up with three constantly changing plasma screens showing the amalgamation of the faces of members of the collective. The purpose is to show differences and similarities between them. Additionally, Abdu’Allah asks members of the collective different questions about themselves like their favorite food, who they would raise from the dead, their star sign and what makes them laugh, placing the responses on a large composite board. We interview Faisal Abdu’Allah and reveal some of his inspirations for the project as well as some of the greater social questions his exhibit raises.

Originally spotted via Racewire, Chang-hyo Bae is a South Korean born, London-based artist playing on Empire and the ambiguity of embracing “Britishness” as the “Other”.

I don’t get to do a lot of theatre in London, although I’m not sure I’ve ever been drawn to big production musicals and don’t quite see myself frequenting one of the West End halls anytime soon. But what I hear, is that I’m missing out on some fantastic smaller productions in the fringe of London’s theatre scene. Currently, a few productions deal with themes of identity, race, integration and immigration - all very Worldtown friendly topics. Here’s a few that I hope to check out:

Rich Mix features a production of Ice&Fire’s The Illegals, a community produced play that tells the story of the individuals behind the stereotype of illegal immigration. Ice&Fire have a whole host of productions

Black Filmmaker (bfm) International Film Festival (IFF) is the leading and longest running platform for Black World Cinema in the UK. The 11th bfm IFF will take place between 6th – 10th November 2009 at the BFI Southbank, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Rich Mix and Shortwave Cinema. bfm IFF 2009 will feature narratives, documentaries and short films from the UK, Africa, the Caribbean, the US, Canada and Europe.

Yet another creative project coming out of the experimental classes of Beirut. Yallah Undergound, a documentary that captures the underground music scene in the Middle East, drawing parallels between musicians and styles in urban centres like Amman, Cairo and Beirut of course. This trailer shows the interviews and soundbytes from Rayess Bek, I-Voice, Scrambled Eggs, and The New Government and plays like a visual mixtape.

Slackistan is an Independent fictionalized story of the apathetic, beautiful, young and privileged of Islamabad, Pakistan. The same Islamabad known to be a few short kilometres from the dangerous “Taliban territory” and vulnerable to unexpected carbombs. The plight of the young elite traversing from one social engagement to another while discussing their hair and what weekend party to go to sounds like any teen drama on American networks. So what exactly could be so interesting or “counter-culture” about the trial and tribulations of Pakistan’s privileged set?