Arab Film Collab

#AFFC2022

April 7-22, 2022

https://affc.eventive.org/welcome

The Arab American National Museum (AANM), the Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI), ArteEast, and Mizna proudly present the Arab Film Fest Collab (AFFC) from April 7-17, 2022. The AFFC is a collectively produced virtual film festival, screening independent Arab cinema for audiences across the United States.

With programs featuring films, panel discussions, and performances from Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), the AFFC aims to capture the diverse narratives and complexity of the Arab world. Genres include drama, science-fiction, comedy and documentary, in both short-form and feature lengths. Screening the work of filmmakers from countries like Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, and Morocco, the AFFC exhibits all films in their original languages with English subtitles

The AFFC opens with A Tale of Love and Desire (dir. 2021, Leyla Bouzid), a romantic drama which follows Ahmed, an 18-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin who discovers a collection of erotic Arab literature and tries to resist his desires when he meets a young Tunisian woman, Farah, and begins to fall in love with her.

Still from *A Tale of Love and Desire* (dir. 2021, Leyla Bouzid)

About the Arab Film Fest Collab Partners

Wa Lakin Alardh Tadur (It Still Rotates)

Suliman Elnour

, Soviet Union

, 1978

, 19 min

Arabic with English subtitles

Suliman Elnour’s graduation film Wa Lakin Alardh Tadur (It Still Rotates) depicts everyday life in a school in South Yemen. A number of these schools were created by the socialist regime specifically for the children of bedouin communities where they learned a variety of skills and subjects including music and critical thinking. The film also…

Sit-In (Eitisam) Climax of the December Revolution in Sudan

Eltayeb Mahdi

, Sudan

, 2022

, 85 min

Arabic with English subtitles

Synopsis In December 2018, the Sudanese people took to the streets in wide protests and demonstrations against the oppressive al-Bashir regime. On April 6th 2019, the protestors staged a sit-in in front of the Sudanese army headquarters in Khartoum that was met with excessive force by militarized troops. Days later, on April 11, 2019, al-Bashir…

Al Dhareeh (The Tomb)

Eltayeb Mahdi

, Egypt

, 1977

, 17 min

Arabic with English subtitles

Al Dhareeh (The Tomb), is Eltayeb Mahdi’s graduation project from the High Institute of Cinema in Cairo. It tells the story of an imposter who claims the power to heal people. Based on real events that occurred along the Nile river in Sudan during the 1960s, the film reflects the popularity of religious imposters in…

Jamal (A Camel)

Ibrahim Shaddad

, Sudan

, 1981

, 14 min

Silent

Jamal (A Camel) is a report from the daily life of a camel, most of which plays out in a dreary, small room – a sesame mill. An account of the resemblances between the camel and the human being, shot at a time when discussing human beings was harder than talking about animals.

Jagdpartie (Hunting Party)

Ibrahim Shaddad

, German Democratic Republic

, 1964

, 41 min

German with English subtitles

Ibrahim Shaddad’s graduation film Jagdpartie (Hunting Party), which he shot at the Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst Potsdam-Babelsberg (now: Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF), is a treatise on racism. Filmed in a forest in Brandenburg, it takes on a Western point of view to depict a hunt for a Black man.

Al Mahatta (The Station)

Eltayeb Mahdi

, Sudan

, 1989

, 16 min

Silent

In Al Mahatta (The Station), Eltayeb Mahdi shows encounters at one of the large crossroads between the capital Khartoum in the center of Sudan and Port Sudan on the Red Sea in the late 1980s. Relying on intersecting scenes of travelers who wait long hours for transportation or who cross the desert on foot alongside…

Al Habil (The Rope)

Ibrahim Shaddad

, Sudan

, 1993

, 25 min

Arabic with English subtitles

Synopsis:Jamila’s Mirror deals with the memories of Palestinian female guerilla fighters, currently in their forties, who were involved in military operations during their teen years.

Kuneitra: Death of a City, Jim Cranmer

Jim Cranmer

, United States, Palestine

, 1974

, 26 min

English

Kuneitra: Death of a City was made by the American Peace Committee to document the UN-commissioned forensic investigation of the atrocities committed by the Israeli Army in the city of Kuneitra in the occupied Golan Heights. Shots of the remnants of destruction of religious sites, graveyards and homes interlace interviews that were made with the town…

Cowboy

Sami Al Salamoni

, Egypt

, 1973

, 16 min

Silent

Synopsis:Cowboy begins from American cinema, as an exposure of the country’s settler colonial structure and its ability to depict genocidal acts through camera framing. The film, directed by the renowned Egyptian film critic Sami Al-Salamoni, reflects his theoretical critique of Hollywood through heavily edited scenes and shots from mainstream motion pictures. Al-Salamoni manages to take the…

Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza

Mustafa Abu Ali

, Palestine

, 1973

, 13.43 min

Arabic with English subtitles

Synopsis:A rare film by the legendary filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali, one of the founders of the Palestine Film Unit, the first filmic arm of the Palestinian revolution. Shot by a French news team, the footage was edited by Mustafa in Lebanon to produce one of the earliest films on the occupied territory in Gaza. Scenes…

Remind me to Remember to Forget

Oraib Toukan

, Jordan

, 2006

, 2 min

Arabic

A performance video referencing Mahmoud Darwish’s 1982 classic “Memory for Forgetfulness”. Made 18 years ago the work is part of a duology titled Counting Memories following the summer of 2006 when Israel launched a war on both Gaza and Lebanon one month apart. The video reveres the act of writing and the will to remember. In…

Mnemonics of Shape and Reason

Sky Hopinka

, United States

, 2021

, 4 min

English

Hopinka’s video Mnemonics of Shape and Reason (2021) traverses the memory of a place and space visited by the artist. Employing an original syntax of storytelling, the artist interweaves scattered and reassembled landscapes with layers of captured audio, poetic text, and music. A rhythmic account of the spiritual implications of colonial plunder, Hopinka’s fluid reflections…

Libretto-o-o

Joe Namy

, Lebanon

, 2024

, 5 min

Libretto-o-o is an exploration of the history and resonance of Middle Eastern opera. Shot across six historically significant opera houses in Algiers, Beirut, Cairo, Marrakech, Muscat, and Tunis – some of which were never completed, others ranking amongst the most lavish theaters ever constructed – this architecture film offers a meditative portrait of the grand theater;…

Specular fiction

Coleman Collins

, United States

, 2024

, 8 min

English

Primarily derived from 3D scans of objects, and with a particular focus on digital replicas of West African architectural sites, Specular fiction is a short, speculative narrative video that traces the complex relationships between seemingly dichotomous terms: original and copy; object and image; real and virtual space. In an imagined future of indeterminate distance, the objects of…

CAPITAL

Basma al-Sharif

Basma Alsharif

, Egypt, Germany, Italy

, 2022

, 17 min

Italian with English subtitles, French with English subtitles, Arabic with English subtitles

As Egypt sinks further into poverty, new cities are being erected across the country and prisons fill with dissenting opinions. Since it is currently not possible to safely speak about this: a ventriloquist, songs, and advertisements describe a seemingly bygone era of fascism.

letter to a friend

Emily Jacir

, Palestine

, 2019

, 43 min

English

A close friend is asked to start an investigation before an inevitable act occurs. Interlacing images, textures, movements, traces and sounds of over a century, letter to a friend recounts in minute detail a home and street in Bethlehem.

Ali in Wonderland

Djouhra Abouda

Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy

, France

, 1976

, 59 min

Synopsis: Ali in Wonderland is a radical, experimental, and politically astute essay on the condition of Maghrebi immigrant workers in France in the 1970s. Recently digitized and restored in 4k by l’Image Retrouvée from the original 16mm negatives and an exhibition print, the film’s images were (in the words of its filmmakers) “filmed like blows of the…

About Some Meaningless Events (De quelques évènements sans signification)

Mostafa Derkaoui

, Morocco

, 1974

, 76 min

Synopsis: In January 1974, Mostafa Derkaoui returned to Casablanca from his studies at the film college in Łódź, Poland. Together with his brother Abdelkrim, he shot his first film in the city’s bars and streets, in the harbour and the poorer districts. The independently produced film was borne by a collective energy unique in the cultural…

Memory 14 (Mémoire 14)

Ahmed Bouanani

, Morocco

, 1971

, 24 min

French

Synopsis: In the late 1960s, Ahmed Bouanani—working as an editor for the CCM—was “exiled” to the organization’s cinematic archives as a punishment for alleged leftist sympathies. Turning the assignment to his advantage, he made a found-footage film that repurposed the documentaries produced by the French during the colonial period to a strong anticolonial essay film. While…

Six and Twelve (Six et Douze)

Ahmed Bouanani

Ahmed Bouanani, Majid Rechich, Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi.

, Morocco

, 1968

, 16 min

Synopsis: Six and Twelve is one of a series of short films and documentaries produced under the auspices of the Centre Cinématographique Marocain in the years after Moroccan independence. While most of these were utilitarian in nature, Bouanani, Tazi, and Rechiche took a different route with this film, creating a modernist “city symphony” film that documented six…

Dreams of the City (Ahlam al-Madina)

Mohammad Malas

, Syria

, 1984

, 120 min

Arabic

Synopsis: When his father dies, Dib, his younger brother and their mother (Yasmine Khlat) move away from their hometown Quneitra to Damascus. The mother’s despotic father reluctantly takes them in and tries to force the mother to remarry. Overwhelmed by the magic of the city, Dib wants to discover everything and is full of dreams but…

A Muslim Childhood (El Ayel/Le gosse de Tanger)

Moumen Smihi

, Morocco

, 2005

, 83 min

Moroccan Arabic

Synopsis: This film, the first in what has become a kind of semi-autobiographical trilogy for Smihi, follows the everyday experiences of a young, timid, pre-teen, boy, Mohamed-Larbi Salmi, who grows up trying to make sense of the gentle religious upbringing of his father, the secular education offered him in French school, and his budding desires for…

Si Moh, the Unlucky Man (Si Moh, pas de chance)

Moumen Smihi

, France

, 1971

, 16 min

Synopsis: Shot in Paris after Smihi completed film school, Si Moh, the Unlucky Man is an investigation of the life of migrant workers in France. Connected to the Maghreb by postcards and to his fellow migrants by shared experiences of alienation, the character Simoh negotiates the industrialized suburbs of Paris as the subject of his intimate camera. Smihi’s…

Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait

Ossama Mohammed

Ossama Mohammed & Wiam Simav Bedirxan

, France, Syrian Arab Republic

, 2014

, 94 min

Arabic

Synopsis: In Syria, every day, YouTubers film then die; others kill then film. In Paris, driven by my inexhaustible love for Syria, I find that I can only film the sky and edit the footage posted. From within the tension between my estrangement in France and the revolution, an encounter happened. A young Kurdish woman from…

Moonscape

Mona Benyamin

, Palestine

, 2020

, 17 min

English, Arabic

Synopsis: Moonscape is a short film that takes the form of a music video for a ballad/middle-of-the-road song, performed as a duet between a male and female singer, in Arabic. The song traces the story of a man called Dennis M. Hope, who claimed ownership of the Moon in 1980 and thus founded the Lunar Embassy…

Letter to a friend

Emily Jacir

, Palestine

, 2019

, 43 min

English

Synopsis: A close friend is asked to start an investigation before an inevitable act occurs. Interlacing images, textures, movements, traces and sounds of over a century, letter to a friend recounts in minute detail a home and street in Bethlehem.

Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright

Akram Zaatari

, Lebanon

, 2011

, 12 min

Synopsis; An intense conversation between two people one evening leads to a pictorial love story about loss and longing. An homage to Eric Rohmer and the attention he paid to the tiny details of everyday life. An eternal story of love and separation.

KHTOBTOGONE

Sara Sadik

Sara Sadik

, France

, 2021

, 16 min

French with English subtitles, French

“A character study animated entirely within the Grand Theft Auto V video game, KHTOBTOGONE begins as a love story between protagonist Zine and the girl of his dreams, Bulma. But in introspective narration, Zine reflects more broadly on masculinity and coming of age in Marseille’s Maghrebi community. Inspired by the experiences of her male friends from southern…

A FEELING GREATER THAN LOVE

Mary Jirmanus Saba

, Lebanon

, 2017

, 99 min

Arabic, Arabic with English subtitles

In her directorial debut, Mary Jirmanus Saba deals with a forgotten revolution, saving from oblivion bloodily suppressed strikes at Lebanese tobacco and chocolate factories. These events from the 1970s, which held the promise of a popular revolution and, with it, of women’s emancipation, were erased from collective memory by the country’s civil wars. Rich in…

GHARIBA

Meriem Bennani

, United States, Morocco

, 2017

, 19 min

Arabic with English subtitles

A playful and moving portrait of some women in Morocco. Evoking reality television, home video, and ethnographic film, its visual language is at once intimate and whimsical, with the director’s digital manipulations by turns amplifying and undermining her subjects’ self-presentations. Bennani’s women discuss love and romance, dating and friendship, loneliness and community, all set against…

THE NOUBA WOMEN OF MOUNT CHENOUA

Assia Djebar

, 2009

, 62 min

Arabic

Relying exclusively on footage from Egyptian films that use the pyramids as backdrop, Domestic Tourism II explores the ways in which these iconic historical monuments can be re-appropriated from the “timelessness” of the tourist postcard and reinscribed by the political, social, and historical complexity of their urban landscape.

Most Fabulous Place

Maha Maamoun

, Egypt

, 2008

, 1 min

Arabic

Most Fabulous Place flips through postcards of Egypt’s main tourist attraction, the Pyramids of Giza, alongside a soundtrack of conversations from various Egyptian films that occur next to these iconic monuments.

What Things May Come

Marianne Fahmy

, Egypt

, 2019

, 12 min

English

After the great flood of the delta, a future oceanographer tells the story of the people’s relocation to the confidential camps in the Sahara desert.

Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha

Lara Baladi

, Egypt, Lebanon

, 2013

, 8 min

Multilingual

Between 2012 and 2013, artist Lara Baladi created the immersive, surround-sound video installation, Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes & Chachacha as a direct response to the ill-concealed misogyny which had been surfacing around the world (and continues to), and which at the time, in Egypt in particular, was amplified by the use of sexual abuse as a counter-revolutionary…

Keyword Searches for Dust

Malak Helmy

, Egypt

, 2009

, 6 min

English

In Arabic, Habaa2 is the term used to describe the moment when individual particles of dust become visible to the naked eye. Habaa2’s translation into English renders these four words: Dust; Aerosol; Chaos; Vanity. The video explores a series of events in Cairo in the summer of 2009.

Hand-me-downs

Yto Barrada

, Morocco

, 2011

, 15 min

English

Barrada digs into her family history and narrates 16 myths based on unreliable narrators and unverifiable stories, illustrated with strangers’ home movies found at flea markets and archival films from the last half-century in Morocco.8

Not Just Any Sea

Nahed Awwad

Larissa Sansour

, Denmark, Palestine

, 2006

, 3 min

Arabic

“Not Just Any Sea!” encapsulates the yearning of Palestinians trapped in the West Bank for beachy shores that they are forbidden from visiting. In a romantic gesture, with waves caressing her feet, filmmaker Nahed Awwad appears to have a poetic longing for her lover. In a three minute monologue, her agony is revealed to be…

Sound of the Street

Annemarie

Annemarie Jacir

, Palestine

, 2006

, 3 min

Arabic with English subtitles, Arabic

This witty satire draws a humorous comparison between a busy collection of ants and the liveliness of a Palestinian street. (Sound of the Street is one of 13 short films from the “Palestine, Summer 2006” collection, produced by the Palestinian Filmmakers’ Collective.)

Pasolini Pa* Palestine

Ayreen Anastas

, Palestine

, 2005

, 51 min

Arabic with English subtitles, Arabic

In 1963, Pasolini visited Palestine to search for locations for his film, the Gospel according to Matthew. His journey included locations in Nazareth and the Galilee, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Bethlehem and the Naqab. Pasolini conducted quick conversations with a biblical scholar don Andrea Carraro and later included a voice over with his comments and…

Going for a Ride?

Nahed Awwad

, Palestine

, 2003

, 15 min

Arabic with English subtitles, Arabic

Documenting the Art Installation “Going for a Ride?” made by the Palestinian Artist Vera Tamari. The installation is a statement on the aggressive and deliberate crushing of hundreds of privately-owned cars by Israeli tanks in Ramallah and El-Bireh during the military incursions in the two towns in 2002. It focuses on crushed cars because of…

A World Apart Within 15 Minutes

Enas I. Al-Muthaffar

, Palestine

, 2006

, 3 min

Arabic

Between Jerusalem and Ramallah not only is there now a huge existing wall on the ground, but also a non-tangible wall in the minds and hearts of people. It is a short drive from here to there, yet when asked whether they know the way to Ramallah, many find it a hard question to answer….

Like Twenty Impossibles

Annemarie

Annemarie Jacir

, Palestine

, 2003

, 17 min

Arabic /English with English Subtitles, Arabic

In a landscape now interrupted by military checkpoints, a group of Palestinian filmmakers attempt to reach Jerusalem. When they decide to avoid a closed checkpoint by taking an unused side road, the landscape unravels, and the passengers are slowly taken apart by the mundane brutality of military occupation. “like twenty impossibles” is both a visual…

Erased,__Ascent of the Invisible

Ghassan Halwani

, Lebanon

, 2018

, 76 min

Arabic

Thirty-five years ago, I witnessed the kidnapping of a man I know. He has disappeared since. Ten years ago, I caught a glimpse of his face while walking in the street, but I wasn’t sure it was him. Parts of his face were torn off, but his features had remained unchanged since the incident. Yet something was…

My Father Is Still A Communist

Ahmad Ghossein

, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon

, 2011

, 32 min

Arabic

Maream is the mother of four kids. Her husband Rachid worked abroad for more than 10 years. From 1978 -1988, she corresponded with her husband by sending cassettes with people traveling. The cassettes provide intimate and personal details of how a relationship evolves between a couple through the passing of time, and also how a…

I’ve Heard 3 Stories

Marwa Arsanios

, Lebanon

, 2009

, 12 min

Arabic

This video, which includes 2D animation, brings together different stories about the chalet Raja Saab, a 1950’s experimental architecture, attempting to investigate and re-stage the disappearance of a dancer from the Crazy Horse Saloon in Beirut. It is part of the research on Acapulco, a once very hip beach resort situated in the southern outskirts…

The Absent Director

Arvand Dashtaray

, Iran

, 2021

, 86 min

English, Farsi

In one continuous take, the film follows the various members of a young Iranian theater company during their secret rehearsals of Macbeth at their Director’s home in Tehran, while he works with them remotely from Paris via video call. Their dream is to submit the play to the Edinburgh Theater Festival on time, but things get complicated…

The Negotiation

Kaya Behkalam

Kaya Behkalam, Azin Feizabadi

, Germany

, 2010

, 38 min

English

The Negotiation examines scenarios of political conflict through a staged negotiation in a UN Security Council-like set. The script presents a group of actors with a three-act drama on an unspecified revolutionary situation. They proceed to rehearse and embody both their real and scripted characters — the boundaries between fictional and factual histories, individual and collective…

One Hundred Faces for a Single Day

Christian Ghazi

, 1969

, 63 min

Arabic

Made in 1969 and released in 1972, Christian Ghazi’s incendiary, avant-garde masterpiece is one of the filmmaker’s only two surviving early works. Through this fiction documentary hybrid film, Ghazi forged a stinging critique of bourgeois society in Beirut during Lebanon’s Golden Age (which would end in 1975 with a grueling and protracted civil war). An…

Blessed Blessed Oblivion

Jumana Manna

, Palestine

, 2010

, 21 min

Arabic

Blessed Blessed Oblivion weaves together a portrait of masculine performativity in East Jerusalem, manifested in gyms, auto body shops, and hairdressing parlors. Inspired by Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963), the video uses visual collage and music as ironic commentary. Anger’s subjects—leather-clad bikers—serve as a counterpoint to the culture Manna attempts to portray, that of male “thug” culture in East Jerusalem. Simultaneously…

I’ve Heard Stories 1

Marwa Arsanios

, Lebanon

, 2008

, 5 min

Arabic

Built by Polish architect Karol Schayer in 1957, the iconic Carlton Hotel was, in its time, a popular meeting place for gay men in Beirut. Between 1973 and 1993, the hotel was also the setting of three murders that might or might not have been related to sexual encounters. Among the victims of these (probably) passionate…

Aurora’s Sunrise

Inna Sahakyan

, Germany, Armenia, Lithuania

, 2022

, 78 min

Turkish, English, Armenian

A genocide survivor becomes a silent movie star: Aurora Mardiganian’s odyssey is close to unreal. After losing her family, escaping slavery, and enduring Hollywood greed, she journeys far to tell the world of the Armenian Genocide.

our songs were ready for all wars to come

Noor Abed

our songs were ready for all wars to come is an experimental film that combines choreographed scenes with documented Palestinian folk tales. With images of women performing and communal rituals associated with mourning and death, the film asks: How can folklore become an emancipatory tool, reclaim history, and rewrite reality? The only narration is a song…

Three Promises

Yousef Srouji

, Palestine

Arabic with English subtitles

Three Promises is the poignant story of a mother and her camera, a son and his suppressed memories, and an entire country. Suha, the mother, documents daily family life during the tumultuous times of the second intifada in the West Bank. As her family frequently seeks refuge underground, Suha makes promises to God in the hopes…

Le Franc

Djibril Diop Mambéty

, Senegal

, 1994

Senegalese

Marigo the musician dreams of his instrument – a congoma – which his landlady has impounded because of his chronic rent non-payments. Getting hold of a lottery ticket, he decides to put it in a safe place while awaiting the drawing: he glues it to the back of his door and covers it with the…

Sin La Habana

Kaveh Nabatian

, Cuba, Canada

, 2020

, 95 min

Persian, English, Spanish

A young, impoverished Afro-Cuban couple dreams of wealth and success. A Canadian Iranian-Jewish divorcée yearns for personal freedom. These three lives converge in Sin La Habana, a film in which power, money, creativity, and destiny intertwine into a passionate love triangle, with a hint of magic, where cultures clash in a torrid dance. Leo, a…

Kite Zo A

Kaveh Nabatian

, Haiti, Canada

, 2022

, 56 min

In 1791, in Haiti, Dutty Boukman presided over a Vodou ritual in Bois-Caïman that led to the creation of the first Black republic. Since then, rituals of transformation and artistic expression have been at the core of a thriving culture as the country faces foreign oppression, poverty, and natural disasters. “Kite Zo A” is a…

Trip Along Exodus

Hind Shoufani

, Palestine, United States, Lebanon, Syria

, 2015

, 120 min

Arabic, Arabic with English subtitles

Trip Along Exodus is a film/poem that recreates the last 70 years of Palestinian and Arab politics seen through the prism of the life of the filmmaker’s father, Dr. Elias Shoufani, a leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, an academic and leftist intellectual who was one of the instigators of the opposition to Arafat within Fatah…

The Music of the Bush Era

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2021

, 23 min

English, Arabic

The film explores the role of music in the Iraq War, particularly the U.S. government’s use of music as a tool of propaganda. Using a variety of news footage, as well as archival footage shot by Abass’ sister, a cellist in the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, the film demonstrates how in 2003, the US administration,…

The Tank of my Sketchbook

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2021

, 7 min

Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles

The Iran-Iraq war is often described as the 20th century’s longest war and its political ramifications arguably exist in Iraq to this day. Yet, its story is often overlooked. In this animated film project, Sherko Abbas draws on his own childhood memories of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, as well as using found images…

Paper Puppet Testimony

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2021

, 8 min

Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles

The Kurdish uprising of 1991 against Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship is a pivotal event commemorated by all Kurdish peoples. This day marked the defeat of the Ba’athist regime in Kurdistan’s cities and each year, Kurdish channels run footage of the moment that people broke into Sulaymaniyah’s notorious prison Amna Suraka, The Red Prison (or Security…

Silence Along the River

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2021

, 7 min

Kurdish with English subtitles

In 1985 a group of Kurdish fighters, known as a “Peshmerga,” embarked on a mission to attack one of the Iraqi army’s camps in the north of the country. They traveled on the Sirwan river by small raft to cross the area controlled by the Iraqi army. This footage is part of an old archive…

Sharwal

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2021

, 4 min

Silent

Sharwal is the name given to the traditional trousers that are worn by men in Kurdistan. Meticulously pleated and made from tightly woven wool, Sharwals can be filled with air and used to assist in flotation over bodies of water. The air bubble created when it is submerged into water has both a form and…

Encounters on the Tigris, Part 1

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2022

, 12 min

Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles

Encounters on the Tigris follows a journey taken by artist and filmmaker Sherko Abbas in 2022, along the ancient Tigris river, in search of previously undocumented oral traditions and the ecological knowledge they hold. His journey begins in the Kurdish Zakho district of northern Iraq and ends in Al Faw, where the river meets the Persian…

Encounters on the Tigris, Part 2

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2022

, 19 min

Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles

Encounters on the Tigris, Part 3

Sherko Abbas

, Iraq

, 2022

, 10 min

Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles

Cineholic

Sherko Abbas

Sherko Abbas and Shirwan Fatihm

, Iraq

, 2021

, 25 min

Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles

Cineholic follows a group of friends from Kirkuk and their love affairs with film since they were young. The story traverses their memories related to this passion, while also alluding to the difficulties of living in Iraq at the ongoing backdrop of dictatorship, war, instability and insecurity. The film also traces the catastrophes of neoliberalism,…

Home of the Heart

Sarah Saidan

, France

, 2022

, 15 min

Persian, French

Omid is an Iranian immigrant who came to France with his family. One evening, in the street, he is attacked and stabbed in the heart. At the hospital, the diagnosis is formal: he has no heart. Has he left it behind in Iran?

The Shadow of the Butterflies

Sofia El Khyari

, Qatar, Portugal, France

, 2022

, 9 min

Arabic

In a mysterious forest, a young woman’s emotions, memories, and desires intermingle with the delicate movements of the butterflies that surround her.

The Ocean Duck

Huda Razzak

, United States

, 2021

, 7 min

English

A granddaughter visits her ailing grandma in a hospital during a flood, bringing back fond memories of the past – spilling over into fantastical visions in the present – as an ancient tale comes to life.

Wicked Girl

Ayçe Kartal

, France, Turkey

, 2017

, 8 min

Turkish

S., 8 years old, is a little Turkish girl with an overflowing imagination. She is keen on nature and animals. While she is looking back on the good old days in her grandparents’ village from a hospital room, dark and terrifying memories emerge and, little by little, begin to make sense.

Beach Flags

Sarah Saidan

, France, Iran

, 2014

, 13 min

Persian

Vida is a young Iranian lifeguard swimmer. Popular in her team, she is determined to fight in order to be the one to participate in an international competition in Australia. However, when Sareh, as fast and talented as her joins the team, she will have to face an unexpected situation.

A Man Wanted to Play Drums

Mahmoud Hamdi

, Egypt

, 2010

, 3 min

Silent

A Man Wanted to Play Drums by Mahmoud Hamdi is a rotoscope animation using scenes taken from the 2007 American film “The Visitor,” directed by Tom Macarthy. The film was produced for and exhibited at Cairo Documenta, one month before the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Back

Yazan Rabee

, Syrian Arab Republic, Netherlands

, 2022

, 7 min

Arabic with English subtitles

A chase, footsteps closing in; as you approach your house, it moves further away. This is a recurring nightmare, shared by many Syrians who have fled their homeland. At night they find themselves back in their hometowns, running, chased by invisible men. They’re looking for a safe place they can never reach. BACK dives into…

Would You Play it Again

Ammar Obeid

, France, Germany

, 2021

, 20 min

English, Arabic

Mudar is a Syrian actor, flew to Germany by a visa from Beirut, he researches refugee’s journeys who came walking on their feet, for his theater play and explores the real experiences that immigrants lived throughout their road. After his meeting with a Syrian filmmaker Ammar Obeid, Mudar wants to stand naked outside in the…

Becoming Iphigenia

Reem Al-Ghazz

Reem Al-Ghazzi

, United States, Syrian Arab Republic, United Kingdom

, 2023

, 67 min

Arabic with English subtitles, Arabic

Before taking the stage, a group of young Syrian women acting in a work of documentary theatre must unravel the legacy of patriarchy in their upbringing – all while making their lives anew in Germany and coming into their own.

The Way Home

Wael Kadlo

, Syrian Arab Republic, Lebanon

, 2018

, 64 min

Arabic, Arabic with English subtitles

Through his quest to better understand the shredded state of his family, Wael questions the long-lasting socio-political crisis in Syria. In 1980, I was born in Syria coinciding with the launch of a project aiming to build an international highway only a few meters away from my house – a bridge that would separate the…

Memory is a Dying Horse

Samer Najari

, Canada

, 2021

, 28 min

Trying to freeze time is an illusion. Whatever we do, life unfolds in one direction. Memory is a dying horse is yet another desperate attempt to challenge the irreversibility of time. A sparse, raw, somehow childish collage of reminiscences filmed on Super 8 between Syria, France and Canada. The whole is accompanied by musical explorations.

Silent Cinema

Meyar Al Roumi

, Syrian Arab Republic

, 2001

, 28 min

Arabic and French with English subtitles

Upon graduating from a film studies program in Paris, Meyar al-Rumi returns to his native Damascus, eager to start making films. But when the script he proposes is rejected by the censors, he is instead inspired to make a portrait of the Syrian filmmakers who have been affected most by censorship. The film is a…

The Final Scene

Eyas Almokdad

, Belgium

, 2022

, 98 min

Arabic with English subtitles

The Final Scene brings us back to the first year of the Syrian revolution through the story of the activist Orwa Al Mokdad, who documented the events of the first year of revolution. After leaving Syria to Lebanon, Orwa presented all the material he recorded to his brother Eyas – a filmmaker based in Belgium…

All roads lead to more

Afraa Batous

, Germany

, 2023

, 78 min

Arabic with English subtitles, Arabic

In the summer of 2020, Afraa, the director, and her three counterparts – Rahaf, Rawa, and Sara –set off on their very first road trip through Europe. But this is no ordinary vacation, and neither are these women. Each of them came to Europe by a different route and had to make different choices in…

Damascus Dreams

Émilie Serri

, Canada

, 2021

, 83 min

French with English subtitles, Arabic with English subtitles

Damascus Dreams follows a filmmaker’s journey to her inaccessible homeland as she composes a Syria that stands somewhere between reality and myth, dream and nightmare, past and present.

OFF FRAME (AKA Revolution Until Victory)

Mohanad Yaqubi

, Palestine

, 2016

, 62 min

Arabic, Arabic with English subtitles

OFF FRAME (AKA Revolution Until Victory) is a meditation on the Palestinian people’s struggle to produce an image and self-representation on their own terms in the 1960s and 1970s, with the establishment of the Palestine Film Unit as part of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). Unearthing films stored in archives across the world after an…

Kings and Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image

Azza El-Hassan

, Palestine

, 2004

, 62 min

Arabic

Azza el Hassan uses rare 1970s and 1980s archival footage of the Palestinian national movement and a series of contemporary interviews with filmmakers, archivists and historians to explore the role of filmmaking and photography during this period. At the heart of the film is her search for answers as to the apparently mysterious ‘loss’ of…

Palestine in the Eye

Mustafa Abu Ali

, Palestine

, 1977

, 28 min

Arabic, Arabic with English subtitles

Palestine in the Eye chronicles the profound impact of Hani Jawharieh’s death for the PLO Film Unit. The film reflects on his life through interviews with family, colleagues, and his own cinematography, including the moment of his death while filming for the Unit in 1976. Although the film has later been attributed to Mustafa Abu Ali,…

The Upper Gate

Arab Loutfi

, Palestine

, 1991

, 90 min

Arabic, Arabic with English subtitles

“When I returned to Sidon in 1983, it had just been occupied. My sister destroyed several documents in a panic because the Zionist soldiers were coming, and I lost many of my mementoes. Friends were killed, and places I had loved were destroyed. I wanted to capture memories that could not be destroyed. The city…

The Road to Palestine

Layaly Badr

, Palestine

, 1983

, 7 min

Arabic, Arabic with English subtitles

An animated short film for children. The film is based on the testimony of the girl Laila, who lives in a Palestinian refugee camp.

Jerusalem, Flower of All Cities

Ali Siam

, Palestine, Jordan

, 1969

, 6 min

Arabic

Set to the famous song by Fairouz, Flower of All Cities, a harmonious picture of Palestinian civil life in Jerusalem is disturbed by the Israeli army’s occupation of the city following the 1967 war. A rare example of the work of Hani Jawharieh, one of founding fathers of Palestinian cinema.

The Story of Gordafarid

Hadi Afarideh

, Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran

, 2008

, 34 min

Persian with English Subtitles, Persian

Naqali (Musical Narration) is an Iranian traditional solo theatre in which only men are allowed to perform. As a matter of fact, it’s been forbidden for women to appear in a Naqali performance. The place for this theatre has usually been teahouses & public squares. A Naqali play is called a Scroll. The Scrolls are…

Comeback

Reza Sayah

, Iran

, 2018

, 30 min

Farsi

Comeback is the story of the return of the Iranian National Polo team to the international stage Iranian polo team. Iran is the birthplace of polo but soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the sport all but disappeared in Iran. Comeback documents the history of polo in Iran, its near demise, and eventually, Iran’s return…

Preserving Taste

Gelareh Kiazand

, Canada, Iran

, 2023

, 27 min

Persian, English

In the era of food sustainability, Hanif Sadr, an engineer turned chef from Tehran, Iran, has opened his first Iranian regional restaurant in San Francisco, USA. He delved into the farm-to-table gastronomy world after working as a cook for a Montessori school in Berkley. His mission is to introduce the regional and seasonal recipes of…

Infidels (Kofar)

Bahman Kiarostami

, Iran

, 2003

, 39 min

Persian with English Subtitles

Infidels (Koffar) is A Film about the Godars, Artist-Gypsies Living in Northern Iran. The film recounts the four ways which the Godars make their living: dancing, acting, hunting and music, while showcasing their dedication to preserving their art and age-old rituals. In this film, the Godars sing songs, play music, and tell the ancient tales of their heritage which…

The Afar

Hadi Afarideh

, Iran

, 2015

, 29 min

Persian with English Subtitles, Persian

“The Afar”, while introducing the ancient and local dances of Torbat Jam and Torbatt Heydarieh, introduces the influential figure of Farooq Kiyani in preserving the local dances of the region, including the dance of Afar, which was a ritual of Nowruz in ancient Iran. The movements of Afer are a sign of creation and show…