From the Middle East & North Africa

From the Middle East & North Africa

A mix of narrative and documentary, this collection of films from the Middle East and North Africa runs the gamut from love stories like Empire M and A Tale of Love and Desire, to hard-hitting political documentaries with Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said.

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From the Middle East & North Africa
  • Skies of Lebanon

    Directed by Chloé Mazlo • Drama • With Alba Rohrwacher, Wajdi Mouawad, Isabelle Zighondi • 2020 • 92 minutes

    A poetic blending of the personal and political, Skies of Lebanon combines live action with animation to create a vivid picture of Lebanon, inspired by the family history of filmmaker Chl...

  • Donga

    Directed by Muhannad Lamin • Documentary • With Ali Sabty • 2023 • 90 minutes

    During Libya's 2011 uprising, young Donga filmed battles, infusing moments of community and humor amidst the war's chaos. Decades later in Istanbul, wounded he grapples with war's grim realities, yet his enduring spiri...

  • One Bullet

    Directed by Carol Dysinger • Documentary • 2023 • 92 minutes

    This story of intimate female friendship forged amidst America's longest war is told by a filmmaker who spent fifteen years in and out of Afghanistan. In this war movie, the battlefield lies behind the curtains of an Afghan home as Bib...

  • Midnight Traveler

    Directed by Hassan Fazili • Documentary • With Hassan Fazili, Fatima Hussaini • 2019 • 88 minutes

    When the Taliban puts a bounty on Afghan director Hassan Fazili’s head, he is forced to flee the country with his wife and two young daughters. Capturing the family’s uncertain journey firsthand, Fa...

  • Leila Khaled: Hijacker

    Directed by Lina Makboul • Documentary • 2005 • 58 minutes

    What kind of a person hijacks an airplane? The family of Leila Khaled, fled to Lebanon in fear of the armed Jewish group Stern Gang. This paramilitary unit first came to Palestine after WW2 to prepare the territory for those who had surv...

  • Fifi Howls from Happiness

    Directed by Mitra Farahani • Documentary • With Bahman Mohassess, Rokni Haerizadeh, Ramin Haerizadeh • 2014 • 102 minutes

    Mitra Farahani’s lyrical documentary explores the enigma of provocative artist Bahman Mohassess, the so-called “Persian Picasso,” whose acclaimed paintings and sculptures dom...

  • Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said

    Directed by Makoto Sato • Documentary • With lan Pappe, Elias Khoury, Azmi Bishara, Daniel Barenboim, Rashid Khalidi, Michel Warschawski, Noam Chomsky, Dan Rabinowitz • 2006 • 138 minutes

    Borrowing its title from the author's 2000 memoir, OUT OF PLACE traces the life and work of Edward Said (193...

  • Leila

    Directed by Dariush Mehrjui • Drama • With Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa • 1999 • 125 minutes

    Reza and Leila, an attractive and affluent young couple deeply in love and recently married, discover that Leila is unable to conceive. Invoking tradition, Reza's mother convinces her daughter-in-law that R...

  • Rojek

    Directed by Zaynê Akyol • Documentary • 2023 • 127 minutes

    The Islamic State group consumed the attention of the West for years. They were despised, feared, and by some, embraced. But who were they? Filmed in prisons and detention camps, this engrossing documentary turns the camera on men and wo...

  • Dachra

    Directed by Abdelhamid Bouchnak • Drama • With Yassmine Dimassi, Hela Ayed, Aziz Jebali • 2018 • 114 minutes

    Ever since she was discovered naked and near-dead decades ago, Mongia has been institutionalized, with a tendency to bite her nurses. Grisly, frightening, and stuffed with howling thrills...

  • Sirens

    Directed by Rita Baghdadi • Documentary • With Lilas Mayassi, Shery Bechara • 2022 • 80 minutes

    SIRENS intimately chronicles the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metalheads whose burgeoning fame is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution. Its members w...

  • Contact, Ep. 5 - Iranian Revolution by Abbas Attar

    Directed by Mario Paloschi, Gianluigi Attorre • Documentary • 2014 • 26 minutes

    The attack on the American Embassy in Tehran is the key event of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. An iconic photo taken by Abbas Attar synthesizes the contradictions and hopes of Iranian people.

  • Deserted Station

    Directed by Alireza Raisian • Drama • With Leila Hatami • 2002 • 90 minutes

    In this lyrical and intimately nuanced story conceived by Abbas Kiarostami and starring Leila Hatami (from Dariush Mehrjui's Leila), a photographer and his young wife are stranded in a remote Iranian village after their ...

  • Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege

    Directed by Abdallah Al-Khatib • Documentary • 2021 • 89 minutes

    The district of Yarmouk (Damascus, Syria) sheltered the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world from 1957 to 2018.

    When the Syrian revolution broke out, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad saw Yarmouk as a refuge of rebels and ...

  • Until the Birds Return

    Directed by Karim Moussaoui • Drama • With Mohamed Djouhri, Hania Amar, Hassan Kachach • 2018 • 113 minutes

    A property developer is witness to random street violence. A pair of secret lovers make their way across the desert. A doctor is accused of having a criminal past. In these three interconn...

  • In Mansourah, You Separated Us

    Directed by Dorothée-Myriam Kellou • Documentary • 2020 • 71 minutes

    An older man walks through piles of rubble—stone heaps and the remnants of walls. Like a host giving guests a tour of his home, he points out where kitchen, bedrooms, and other rooms once stood. “This is where I was born and gr...

  • Papicha

    Directed by Mounia Meddour • Drama • With Lyna Khoudri, Shirine Boutella, Amira Hilda Douaouda • 2019 • 108 minutes

    Set in Algeria in the 1990's, Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri, The French Dispatch), is an 18 year-old student passionate about fashion design who refuses to let the tragic events of the Alge...

  • As I Open My Eyes

    Directed by Leyla Bouzid • Drama • With Marwen Soltana, Youssef Soltana, Deena Abdelwahed, Lassaad Jamoussi, Aymen Omrani, Montassar Ayari, Ghalia Benali, Baya Medhaffar • 2015 • 102 minutes

    As I Open My Eyes gives us a look at Tunisian youth on the eve of the Jasmine Revolution as they are pull...

  • A Tale of Love and Desire

    Directed by Leila Bouzid • Drama • 2022 • 103 minutes

    Ahmed (Sami Outalbali), French of Algerian origin, grew up in the suburbs of Paris. At the university, he meets Farah (Zbeida Belhajamor), a young Tunisian woman, full of energy, who has just arrived in Paris. While discovering a corpus of se...

  • Empire M

    Directed by Hussein Kamal • Drama • With Faten Hamamah, Ahmad Mazhar • 1972 • 113 minutes

    After the death of her husband, Mona (Faten Hamama) is raising her six kids along with working at her demanding job. She gradually falls in love with a businessman Ahmed (Ahmed Mazhar), but is afraid to giv...

  • In the Last Days of the City

    Directed by Tame El Said • Drama • With Khalid Abdalla • 2018 • 118 minutes

    Tamer El Said’s ambitious debut feature tells the fictional story of a filmmaker from downtown Cairo played by Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner, United 93, Green Zone, The Square) as he struggles to capture the soul of a ...

  • Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi & Abbas Kiarostami)

    Directed by Jafar Panahi • Written by Abbas Kiarostami * Drama • With Hossain Emadeddin • 2003 • 95 minutes

    Two master filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami (A Taste of Cherry) and Jafar Panahi (The Circle, Taxi) team up as writer and director, respectively, on Crimson Gold, a subtle tragedy on class con...

  • Born in Evin

    Directed by Maryam Zaree • Documentary • 2019 • 98 minutes

    Born in Evin follows filmmaker and actress, Maryam Zaree, on her quest to find out the violent circumstances surrounding her birth inside one of the most notorious political prisons in the world.

    Exactly forty years have passed since th...

  • Captain Abu Raed

    Directed by Amin Matalqa • Drama • With Nadim Sawalha (Abu Raed) / Rana Sultan (Nour) / Hussein Al-Sous (Murad) / Udey Al-Qiddissi (Tareq) • 2014 • 100 minutes

    Captain Abu Raed is a universal story of friendship, inspiration and heroism set in contemporary Jordan. Abu Raed is a lonely janitor at...