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
  • My Maysoon

    Directed by Batoul Karbijha • Documentary • 2023 • 55 minutes

    Filmmaker Batoul Karbijha uses making a film about her disappeared sister as a means of finding out what happened and as a way of dealing with it. For herself, for her family and for all families who lost loved ones on their way to a ...

  • My Worst Enemy

    Directed by Mehran Tamadon • Documentary • With Mehran Tamadon, Zar Amir Ebrahimi • 2023 • 82 minutes

    “What are you thinking? You’re thinking, ‘This is cinema. I’m sowing seeds to create a dialogue.’ Maybe you’ll be able to open a dialogue. A dialogue without any outcome.” — Zar Amir Ebrahimi

    F...

  • And Still I Sing

    Directed by Fazila Amiri • Documentary • 2023 • 90 minutes

    Amidst the United States and Taliban peace negotiations, Afghanistan’s controversial pop star and activist Aryana Sayeed mentors hopeful contestants on the hit singing TV series Afghan Star, including the only two female singers, Zahra E...

  • Rebel

    Directed by Adil and Bilall • Drama • With Aboubakr Bensaihi, Lubna Azabal, Tara Abboud • 2023 • 134 minutes

    When Kamal resolves to change his life for the better, he leaves Belgium to help war victims in Syria. But, having arrived, he is forced to join ISIS and is left stranded in Raqqa. Back h...

  • 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...