Discoveries from Saudi Arabia World Cinema

The second part of the triptych “Regard sur le cinéma musical arabe” (a look at Arab musical cinema), Samia forever pays a resounding tribute to the woman who, for more than twenty years, was the “Marilyn Monroe” of Egyptian musicals. Between film extracts, archives and testimonies, the film traces the life of Samia Gamal (1924-1994) who, by becoming a cinema legend, established herself as one of the icons of Oriental dance. “Perhaps dance was innate in me”, she said. And so it had to be to dedicate one’s life to that art as, while Oriental dance (“raqs al-sharqui”) is a cultural phenomenon as old as it is indisputable, Egyptian society has always stigmatised its dancers.

Google Maps, Wikipedia, and early 20th-century colonial landscape photography provide the material for this absorbing techno-meditation on the status of Palestine and the notion of the “Holy Land.”

During the civil war in Lebanon, stage director Adel celebrates his birthday alone, after his wife deserted him, he decides to go out to the city in search of companionship, but some armed men take his car to conduct a military operation against another party. They beat him severely but he refuses to report what happened to the police.

Fragments of landscapes and voices cohere into a rich exploration of the unrepresentable in this film about the possible burial of nuclear waste in the South of the West Bank and the invisible networks of power that control the region.

The film addresses Human Rights violations in Libya, Militarisation, Impunity and lack of local and International accountability, security for women and human rights defenders, UN Resolution 2174, and the struggle to continue Salwa's legacy for a just, free and inclusive Libya.

A play of people and people from the Festival of Light Stars

UAE's first feature-length film.

The relationship between a Saudi student living in LA California, and Satan.

Three locations: Jerusalem, the West Bank and Haifa. Three characters: Baraá, Rima and Tasneem. Three girls between the ages of 13 and 17 speak to us, through their daily lives, of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with knowledge, coherence and clarity capable of making any spectator reflect. Living no more than 100 km apart, but separated by walls and checkpoints that make it difficult for them to meet, the path they take to get to know each other appears in the documentary as a metaphorical tool to show the resistance of the Palestinian population. Through the observation of daily life and the concerns of the protagonists, we verify that, although they are very different from each other, they are united by a common desire for peace and for the end of the occupation.

A short essay film attempting to formally combine day-to-day props and itineraries in Beirut. These elements, whether formally gendered or transformed into something that is, all become part of a personal narrative where I am made aware of my gender. This experiment challenges the notion of the binary as I navigate through the city as both male, female, and neither.

Not there yet

A man in the hospital was drugged after his operation and wants to hide his girlfriend in the closet so that his wife does not see her.

The story revolves around the persistent rejection of a young man who wants to get married.

Yazan, despite the obstacles he faced, tries to implement his plan of revenge for his father deceased some time ago.

The movie tells the story of a lonely man who goes to a job interview of a different sort, in which the roles are flipped in it

"What side on earth do I work for?" Lebanese filmmaker Mohamed Berro asks himself as he explores the links between culture, politics and ecology. He questions his own role as an image maker while meeting a Yamani and uprooting failing bureaucracy in Lebanon.

A documentary film that tells the story of the artist Fawzi and the series of Experiments and experiences which he had in the field of Caligraphic art.

A short documentary film that tells the story of a craft rooted in Yanbu -the sea- culture. The events of the film move towards penetrating into the depths and dimensions of the term " whaler "

A refugee suspects a neighbor from back home with the death of her family in the war, that leads to an evident about her brother's life probability, through the only witness who's about to go overseas.

A portrait of a migrant worker in Lebanon.

The life of a face mask

In a world where all kind of art is banned, Georges and his friends decide to start a revolution.

Saken is an observational documentary directed by Sandra Madi set in Jordan that follows the friendship of Ibrahim, a Palestinian fedai who was injured in Lebanon while on duty before the 1982 israeli invasion on Lebanon, leading to his paralysis, and Walid an Egyptian man who has been Ibrahim's companion and caretaker for the past 15 years. Saken is a film about friendship and sacrifice, how some people’s destinies are linked and hard to be broken.

Hussain, a jovial patient, seems at home in his hospital room. Bedridden with a chronic illness, he uses his pocket tape recorder to voice his thoughts. He understands his time is near and seems to be at peace with it. When a brash, angry, young man Khalid is shifted to his room, he starts feeling protective towards him. With his life coming to an end, he makes a crucial decision – a decision that will give Khalid a second chance at life.

"Dabke Time" explores the background of the Dabke dance and specifically the Lebanese Dabke. Flimmaker Roshdi Alkadri interviews several subjects across two different villages in Lebanon to find out more about this popular dance

A film which tells the story of a Moroccan employee named Ahmed who receives a financial subsidy from work. Some of his friends suggest that he invest him in the search for treasures. Then Ahmed neglects his work and his house and becomes obsessed with the treasure.

The painfully brutal tale of the sexual awakening of a young Palestinian man as influenced by the his libido and the violence around him. His encounter with an elderly Jewish man in Tel Aviv stirs memories and bring these feelings to a head.

A small conservative city young man with passion for filmmaking, enrolls in a photography contest to be admitted to a film school, his contest subject doesn't sit well with the locals.

A true story about a child who had diabetes but the father ignored his son's illness and neglected him ignorantly.

The Flies, a Saudi film produced in 1950, stands as a historical milestone in the Saudi Arabian film industry. The film sheds light on the issue of flies and their risks to public health, forming part of Aramco's efforts to combat diseases in the Kingdom.

This film – neither performance nor fiction – is the third part of the artists’ attempt to revisit Anastas’s 2007 film, which sought to translate and put into play Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” onto the contemporary Arab World.

In and around the historical ruins of Fustat in Old Cairo, tensions simmer between the site’s government-appointed guards and residents of a nearby informal settlement, al-Izba. The guards chase away looters and confiscate their equipment, while locals infuriate them by taking shortcuts through the site, occasionally stopping for a smoke. For the guards it would be easiest to keep the site closed until further notice.

To be gay in Beirut, one of the most openminded capitals in the Middle East, which is sinking in the era of repressions, is not as easy as it looks. This documentary tells an exceptional and an uncommon story of two lives.

Inspired by the filmmaker's own experiences, Bahari explores the relationship between the production of images, documentary cinema, and the public perception of the motivations behind these practices, specifically in the era of heavy surveillance and citizen journalism.

This short film tells the story of Noorah, a young Arab woman drawn into a world of violence and treachery when her friend, Sarah, is abducted by Islamic militants and forced into servitude.

An Iraqi LGBT refugee who is also a belly dancer escapes his country and moves to Greece, seeking safety from a family who wants him dead and hoping to find a home that will grant him a life in peace and tranquility.

A journey that touched a part of the Saudi culture, which embodies in an intense sense the values ​​of generosity, hospitality and celebration .. Albara and Abdul Rahman and their third dog on a walking trip (403 km) from Gurayat to Sakaka.

A young nurse couple decide to have baby which is not currently possible due to an earlier abortion. She decides to proceed to medical treatments in London, but ...

A short drama about a young man who tries to protect his family from bandits and harassers, who tackles them, but they are hard on him and he monitors his movements to avenge him

During the Lebanese civil war, some are forced to create their own world amid falling bombs