‘Father K’ Plays To A Packed Theater In Bay Ridge

BAY RIDGE — Rev. Khader El-Yateem returned to his old neighborhood for a night to see the Brooklyn premiere of “FATHER K,” a documentary based on his 2017 run for the City Council seat to represent Bay Ridge, his home for nearly two decades. Following the election, the reverend moved to Florida. His legacy, however, inspired a movement among the longstanding Arab-American residents of Southern Brooklyn.

Ridgites packed the 210-seat Alpine Theatre Sunday night to view the award-winning film. Many of them had worked on his campaign in the 43rd district, currently represented by Justin Brannan. The free-screening, which attracted Councilman Brannan and Assemblywoman Mathylde Frontus, was followed by a Q&A with El-Yateem and members of El-Yateem’s Southern Brooklyn political organization, Yalla Brooklyn.

“It was very hard to sit here and watch this documentary,” El-Yateem told Bklyner. “It was very emotional but I’m grateful for every minute of it. This is an incredible moment and I’m glad to see everyone here who worked on the campaign.”

The 34-minute film reveals some surprising details of his days as a young man on the West Bank. The audience gets a peek into the home life of El-Yateem, 50, and a closer look at how he mobilized a district.

Directed by Judd Ehrlich and produced by Aidan Tumas, both of Flatbush Pictures, the film portrays the Palestinian-American priest as an even larger persona on the big screen.

Ehrlich, of Flatbush, stumbled across El-Yateem while in an Italian restaurant having picked up his son from soccer practice. He saw a campaign photo of a priest with an Arabic name, running for public office in Bay Ridge. The unique juxtaposition made him contact the campaign immediately. He was filming soon after.

“I had every hope that he was going to go on and win the primary and then win the general,” Ehrlich said. “And when that didn’t happen we needed to re-examine what the film was really about.”

The Reverend came within 700 votes of beating current Councilmember Brannan. Even with the loss, a sense of hope lingered the film documents.

Mobilizing the Arabic-speaking community to vote in the 2017 election inspired and resulted in the creation of a political organization – Yalla Brooklyn (Let’s go, Brooklyn! in Arabic). It’s current president Murad Awawdeh said the organization helped to elect 30 County Committee members this year.

Voter turnout for Arab-American residents in the council district had peaked at 250 prior to the 2017 election and no numbers are available for the last two elections, however, Awawdeh says they registered to vote 800 new voters and re-registered over 250 voters.

“We’re going to keep organizing,” said Mary Hetteix. The 32-year-old worked on the campaign since its June 2017 start. “We’ve seen big changes in our representatives this year and that’s in no small part to the work we did all over Bay Ridge,” she added.

Yalla Brooklyn members supported both State Senator-elect Andrew Gounardes and Congressman-elect Max Rose, in their successful bids to unseat long-time Republicans, including eight-term State Sen. Marty Golden.

The film couldn’t be more timely. Councilmen Justin Brannan and Mark Treyger recently co-sponsored a bill that would allow Arabic-speaking translators inside polling sites on Election Day. The bill comes after limited-English speaking voters complained of voter suppression to local lawmakers. Even “FATHER K”  touches on it, almost prophetically. Brannan was there to inform people about the new legislation.

The youngest member of the campaign couldn’t vote for his mentor last year. Now, Alex Pellitteri, 18, is a freshman at Hunter College and likely to major in political science based on his experience.

“This was something that was very influential in my life and I’m glad I have some record of this experience,” said Pellitteri who appeared several times in the film.

The film has won several awards, including one from the Rhode Island International Film Festival which qualifies the documentary as an Academy Awards contender.