U-Matic

Arab World Festival, 13 min, 6-23-89

U-Matic tape containing footage shot at the Arab World Festival in Hart Plaza, dated June 23, 1989. The footage primarily focuses on event's food. The video features people eating in Hart Plaza's northeast amphitheater area; vendors, menu boards, cooks, and diners in the underground concessions area; a woman reading a newspaper under a tree with the Renaissance Center in the background, people in the area around Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain, and a woman with a group of children crossing Jefferson Avenue at Woodward Avenue heading toward Hart Plaza.

Most of the concessions booths in the underground area featured their names on their menus or on other signs. "Syrian American Cultural," "Syrian Club," "St. Peter Paul Syrian Orthodox Church," "Caldean Family Club," and "Uncle Zak" are shown. One shot captures an Arabic language menu posted at one of the booths. Lamb schawarma, tabolueh, and pitas are among the foods being prepared and sold at the booths. One cook flips a pita up in the air for the camera.

The video is on a 3M UCA-30s U-Matic S tape with a handwritten 3M label on its top. The tape is housed within a black plastic latching clamshell case with a handwritten 3M label on the cover. A handwritten shot list on City of Detroit stationery is included in the case.