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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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...