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Linux on the Silver Screen in Amman

I mentioned last week that Amman is becoming an amazingly geeky city. The new release from filmmakers Omar Saleh and Rifqi Assaf illustrates my point nicely. Billed as a “cult comedy”, the film “The Last Patch” postulates a future where Microsoft is under attack from the forces of Open Source, who are implanting bugs, trojans and viruses into Microsoft software in the hopes of bringing down Gates’s empire. The Last Patch, delivered by a messenger from “the holy land” (would that be Redmond?), will plug all the vulnerabilities in the OS and protect the empire from the trojan horse of open source, if only the Microsoft faithful can distribute it in time. (You can see the poster here, or watch the online trailer, which, of course, is in Windows Media format, which means I haven’t been able to watch it…)

Rai’da Al-Zu3bi, who let me know about the film, worries that the film will trash the open source movement – I can’t help but think that anyone who would make a film about software patches has to have a certain amount of sympathy for the open source movement. I’m hoping she and other of my friends will see the film in an upcoming Amman screening and let me know how it is.

For anyone curious about the local independent film scene in Jordan, the Amman Filmmaker’s website has lots of clips and bios of directors.