Discoveries from Saudi Arabia World Cinema

A woman in Syria brings her deaf son out and adapts to a world he hears, but ends up teaching him the value of silence

Darmalli is a simple young man struggling to improve his situation but he is convinced that the world has two types of people, the lucky and the loner, and since he believes that he is the last type, he is desperate for his success. Does luck really play a role in our lives or are we making luck?

Speculating on the impact of a 1989 solar storm, Roy Samaha's film mimics the unpredictable release of energy flares, layering personal histories with major geopolitical events as it shifts from his family's Beirut home to Bucharest, Berlin, and further afield.

The play revolves around Zaghloul, a simple employee at the tourism company, who discovers that he works for drug dealers in the form of the owners of the company. Zaghloul tries to fall into this gang with poison sellers, whom he considers to be the bad guys and children of Dracula.

The story of the play revolves around the divorce of Nora Hala Sedqi from Hamdi, her husband Nabil al-Hagrassi, and then her father Hassan Hosni tries to find an analyst to marry Hamdi again and then the choice is made by Zerbeeh Mohammed Najm, telling him that Mayor Moslehi, his uncle Zakaria Mawafi, does not like divorce and if he comes to them. A visit and an absolute view will deprive her of the inheritance they forced him to change his name from Zerbeih to Hamdi, but her first husband comes Hamdi and confesses to him the fact that Zerbeeh is surprised by the truth and knew his fiancé Suhayr Barouni's wife had married another woman and cried and cried but she loved Hamdi and left Zerbeeh and loved Nora Zrbeeh and agreed to keep her husband married The play ends . The play was a great success in Egypt and some Arab countries

The woman in the film returns to Beirut after many years of absence. Her return wasn't meant, she came to bury her mother. A walk at dawn leads her deep into the city which on its turn leads her to Abdallah, her past lover. But the gap of time, space and experience make this encounter impossible, or elsewhere.

After her seven children fled Syria seeking refuge worldwide, 80-year-old Susu finds herself with no other choice but to leave Damascus and move to Dubai to live with her daughter’s family. Despite the security she enjoys in the Gulf city, she remains persistent in her desire to return to the now-empty, family house in the country that millions of people have left.

A short film about sadness, Silence and emptiness

An old town id under the affection of the mythical story of the Tree of Sidra.

a girl god bored of her daily routine, starts to hear an odd sound.

1991 revolves around a FaceTime phone conversation between the filmmaker, an Iraqi asylum-seeker living in the United States, and his mother, Bushra Alsaegh, an Iraqi immigrant living in Turkey while she awaits approval to immigrate to the United States. The film shows how a relationship can become virtual and symbolic across forced distance.

A teenage Egyptian girl living in Cairo with her old father, they are having troubles connecting, the girl thinks that the day has come to kill the father.

Sama is in denial over the recent death of her twin brother, Mousa. On the first birthday anniversary following his passing, she finally decides to visit his grave to fulfil an old promise. However; the cemetery guard objects to her staying past sunset. Sama sneaks back in determined, least expecting that her second encounter with the guard, is her wake up call to submit to her loss.

A short documentary that tells the stories of Yemeni refugees living in Markazi Refugee Camp.

An Egyptian woman is trying to look after her four children, especially in the lead-up to and aftermath of her divorce from their father. However, over time, the circumstances around her gradually change on all levels.

The video Transit by Taysir Batniji tackles the issues of borders. The Palestinian artist presents a silent slideshow, made up of photographic images, that he made clandestinely at border passages between Egypt and Gaza. The photographs of people waiting are alternated with black screens, metaphors for emptiness and the passing of time, reflecting the difficult and often impossible conditions of mobility for today’s Palestinians. The video addresses notions of travel and displacement as well as the situation of being between two cultures and identities.

A small camera dropped in the sand by an Emirati boy when he was slaughtered by an international drug trafficking gang during an innocent trip to the desert, is a vital clue in discovering the identity of those behind the heinous crime.

Les eaux cachées (Hidden Waters) tells the story of water in Fez, Morocco, the cultural practices surrounding it, and those who aim to save it for future generations.

A unique insight into modern day Iraq, eloquently portrayed by Iraqi director Kasim Abid, who returned to his native country shortly after the fall of Saddam following an absence of 30 years. Shot over five years, this film shows the director reuniting with his family in 2003. They had survived dictatorship, war and sanctions and were ready for change.

How are borders constructed and how do they impact people's lives? Through personal tales of displacement, Beirut residents adapt different maps of the city and region by sewing borders onto them. Archival maps, international treaties and declarations evoke a complex scheme of power structures and nation-building.

A melancholy song, full of hope and longing, reverberates in The New World, guiding us through the lives of Lebanese immigrants Amer and Sana Khaddaj. Ghalia Elsrakbi and Lauren Alexander use archival material to collect stories of ordinary people of Middle Eastern descent, bringing us a fresh look at what it means to be displaced.

The narrative thread in Taysir Batniji’s video is a telephone conversation between the artist located in France and his mother located in Gaza. Starting from this intimate, fluctuant, fragmented, difficult and sometimes indistinct exchange, the artist questions the resonance of words like displacement, in-between and exile. Through a triple point of view, Ma mère, David et moi explores how to look at one’s home from elsewhere and how to establish connexions by combining narration, souvenirs, impressions, the personal story and information documents.

The life of St. Mary of Egypt

In 1952, a group of military officers came to power in Egypt with a coup d’etat. They came with a bouquet of promises: independence from the British empire, modernization of a country worn out by centuries of occupation, social equity and proper distribution of wealth to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, unity of all factions, minorities and ideologies in one big modern democratic society. Slightly over half a century later and despite the sometimes blind faith and total belief of the mass public, all promises remain unfulfilled. The screen is divided in three parts; each part shows the protagonist/ freedom fighter. The parts are social equity, liberty and unity.

Daya Al-Taseh is an anti-IS satirical web series created by a group of Syrian video activists. They produce the episodes from their base in Gaziantep, Turkey. After receiving threats from IS supporters they leave to Istanbul with the aim to broadcast an improved topical-comedy show for Syrian TV. But obstacles keep arising in an already unstable situation, pressuring the group’s work and friendships. They are forced to make decisions about the future of their activism and the possibility of stable life in Istanbul, or elsewhere.

Sand and Blut shows the recent history of Iraq and Syria – from the perspective of those who have come to Europe in recent years. Whether it is the conquest of their own village by Syrian regime troops, the crimes perpetrated by various rebel groups or the destruction of their own parents' homes, war refugees can watch these tragedies in videos broadcast over the internet. The film consists exclusively of videos filmed by activists, fighters and civilians. The protagonists comment on the footage and speak openly about their experiences.

In a working class suburb of Cairo, Egypt, where lives are intertwined and everybody knows each other's business, thirteen year old Fingo wants to hang lights in his street for Ramadan. Many in his neighborhood try to dissuade him, or say it's not possible. This makes him more determined, but he only has two days, and the obstacles he faces seem insurmountable.

White Oil II explores the stone quarrying industry in Palestine’s West Bank. Installed as a double screen installation, the film, made over a three year period, is a subtle examination of the impact and workings of the occupation, where much of the material quarried is expropriated by Israeli authorities, used to build settlements and exported as Israeli stone. Moving from day to night Price documents the industrial process of the material extraction and moments in the personal lives of quarry owners, workers and security guards working there.

On the outskirts of the city, right by the water, lies an arterial road that leads to Beirut’s international airport. Most of the houses standing there are illegal constructions, quickly erected for a life alongside the road. Karam Ghossein, who also works as a cameraman for other video artists from Lebanon, combines pictures from a commissioned production he shot on the occasion of a friend’s wedding in 2004 with street impressions from the present day. Past events can’t be told apart from the observations of today: a kaleidoscope of stories that take place on this highway.

A short documented visit to the ophthalmologist by Anhar Salem

Iraqi Voices is an ongoing collaborative mentorship program that gives Iraqis in Minnesota support and training to transform their stories into high-quality documentary video shorts. THE ACTOR: An Iraqi actor discusses the Friday demonstrations in Baghdad.

A young woman explores the physical and psychological effects of the genital mutilation she experienced as a child.

Libyan documentary.

Short film about the politics of measuring.

The story of one man's frustration with his generation of modern Arabs who appear Western but are more conservative than the traditional Arabs. While there are many films about hypocrisy in the Middle East made by Western filmmakers, Not Quite The Taliban is the first to be made by an Arab who puts himself on the line by speaking up about the taboos, such as his homosexuality.

Oil and Sand was an extravagant film made by members of the Egyptian royal family and a few friends and relatives in 1952 about a coup d'état, shot just weeks before the royals were overthrown in a real coup. The completed Technicolor film was destroyed by the director in fear that it would be used as propaganda against the ousted monarchy. Following Mahmoud Sabit, the man who found the original 8mm reels and who is himself a relation of the late king of Egypt, this documentary focuses on the reconstruction of the film's story, its array of real life players, and the political circumstances surrounding the shoot. This uncanny marriage of fiction and reality reveals that the original film not only managed to unwittingly predict the fate of the King, but also foresaw the next 60 years of relations between Egypt and the West.

In a place where extremes are raised, a tough choice has to be made. An ex-mujahideen struggles to reconcile his faith and reality. But he faces setbacks at every turn as he is forced to collect cardboard in the streets of Zarqa, an occupation barely sustaining his family. As his situation deteriorates he has to make a radical decision to save himself from humiliation. Abu Amar found himself disillusioned with the chaos Afghanistan was left in during the 80's and tried to clear this confusion by writing a book on Jihad. However insightful and moderate, he has failed so far to publish his work. In the meantime his attempts to build a normal life in the impoverished town where Iraq Al Qaiada leader Al Zarqawi grew up are failing.

from interior to exterior. afterhours.

Ever-present but unseen algorithms are described as the "ghosts" haunting our digital rights, freedom of speech, and privacy. Here, "The Image Has No Right To Exist" mirrors the effort to deconstruct language and resist algorithmic oppression. It explores the invisible forces shaping narratives, such as the Palestine-Israel conflict, and how they become "image events" dominated by algorithmic influence. At the same time, it raises questions about visibility and invisibility in the digital age. By reinterpreting hauntology in this context, the project confronts the spectral presence of algorithms and highlights their pervasive impact on digital rights.

The documentary explores Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) pilgrimage.

What Is Up My Fruend is a Comey play.

Mawahib Band : Saudization Operetta was held in NESMA Company at 2009.