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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Amira
Directed by Mohamed Diab • Drama • 2022 • 100 minutes
Amira (Tara Abboud), a 17 year old Palestinian, was conceived with the smuggled sperm of her imprisoned father, Nawar. Although their relationship since birth has been restricted to prison visits, he remains her hero. His absence in her life ...
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Rock the Casbah
Directed by Laïla Marrakchi • Drama • With Morjana Alaoui, Hiam Abbass • 100 minutes
The patriarch of a family dies suddenly, prompting a reunion of his daughters, some of whom haven't seen each other for a long time. In the midst of mourning their father, traditions are upheld... and secrets ar...
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Razzia
Directed by Nabil Ayouch • Drama • With Maryam Touzani, Arieh Worthalter, Amine Ennaji • 2017 • 119 minutes
In this searing and mesmerizing drama, five Moroccans from different social and religious strata are pushed to the fringe by their extremist government. Spanning three decades and several ...
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Les Enfants Terribles
Directed by Ahmet Necdet Çupur • Documentary • 2021 • 93 minutes
Twenty years ago, Ahmet Necdet Çupur left his village in south-eastern Turkey, against his parents wishes. Now, he is back. But this time as a filmmaker documenting his siblings’ struggles against the same oppressive family culture...
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Afghanistan 1979: The War That Changed the World
Directed by Gulya Mirzoeva • Documentary • 2014 • 52 minutes
The Soviet troops' intervention in Afghanistan was a pivotal event in the history of the 20th century. It launched Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in 1979. This was the war that changed the world. Western cou...
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Saving Mes Aynak
Directed by Brent E. Huffman • Documentary • 2015 • 58 minutes
SAVING MES AYNAK follows Afghan archaeologist Qadir Temori as he races against time to save a 5,000-year-old archaeological site in Afghanistan from imminent demolition. A Chinese state-owned mining company is closing in on the ancie...
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Neither Allah, Nor Master!
Directed by Nadia El Fani • Documentary • 2011 • 71 minutes
Winner of the International Secular Prize, Tunisian-Franco filmmaker Nadia El Fani, an avowed atheist, takes a personal approach to this cinematic exploration of secularism in the Muslim country of Tunisia before and after the depositio...
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The Virgin, the Copts and Me
Directed by Namir Abel Messeeh • Documentary • 2011 • 85 minutes
A non-believer born in Egypt and raised in France by his Copt parents, filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh has a complicated relationship with his ethnoreligious heritage. THE VIRGIN, THE COPTS AND ME is playful and warm personal account...
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Nefertiti's Daughters
Directed by Mark Nickolas and Racha Najdi • Documentary • 2015 • 40 minutes
A story of women, art and revolution, this vibrant film documents the critical role that revolutionary street art played-and is continuing to play-in the political uprising of Egypt. Introducing a cadre of courageous and...
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Ambulance
Directed by Mohamed Jabaly • Documentary • 2016 • 78 minutes
Mohamed, 24, aspires to make films in Gaza City, despite the lack of water, electricity, and closed borders that are part of every ‘normal’ day under the 7-year Israeli blockade of Gaza. While many young people dream of leaving Gaza, M...
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5 Broken Cameras
Directed by Guy Davidi & Emad Burnat • Documentary • 2011 • 90 minutes
An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements....
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A Maid for Each
Directed by Maher Abi Samra • Documentary • 2016 • 67 minutes
Domestic work is a real market in Lebanon, segmented according to the national and ethnic origins of the workers and in which the Lebanese employer is master and the worker the property. Zein owns a domestic worker agency in Beirut. H...
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Resistance is Life
Directed by Apo W. Bazidi • Documentary • 2017 • 73 minutes
From a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border, an 8-year-old girl named Evlin characterizes the resilience of her hometown of Kobane against ISIS militants. In the midst of the tragic war in Syria, Evlin's story provides hope.
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Sound of Torture
Directed by Keren Shayo • Documentary • 2013 • 58 minutes
Since 2006 when Europe closed its borders, human trafficking has burgeoned in Egypt’s Sinai Desert, where Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees heading north to Israel are kidnapped, held hostage, and tortured by Bedouin smugglers demandin...
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Tadmor
Directed by Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim • Documentary • 2016 • 103 minutes
Amidst the popular uprising in Syria that begin in 2011, a group of former Lebanese detainees of the Assad regime decides to break their long-held silence about the horrific years they spent imprisoned in Tadmor (Palm...
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Tahrir: Liberation Square
Directed by Stefano Savona • Documentary • 2011 • 90 minutes
'Soon after the first reports came about the occupation of Tahrir Square, filmmaker Stefano Savona headed for Cairo, where he stayed, amidst the ever-growing masses in the Square, for weeks. His film introduces us to young Egyptians su...
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Mirages
Directed by Olivier Dury • Documentary • 2008 • 46 minutes
Every day, thousands of miles from here, dozens of people are driven by an incredible sense of hope to set out with the intention of arriving in Europe. During the first few days of their crossing from Agadez to Djanet, from Niger into A...
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Disturbing the Peace
Directed by Stephen Apkon, Andrew Young • Documentary • 2017 • 86 minutes
In a world torn by conflict — in a place where the idea of peace has been abandoned — an energy of determined optimism emerges. When someone is willing to disturb the status quo and stand for the dream of a free and secure...
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The Rabbi's Cat
Directed by Joann Sfar & Antoine Delesvaux • Animation • With Mathieu Amalric, Hafsia Herzi, François Damiens, Eric Elmosnino • 2011 • 80 minutes
Set in Algeria in the 1930s, THE RABBI'S CAT adapts Joann Sfar's best-selling graphic tale of a sharp-tongued feline philosopher. When a cat belonging...
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Mimosas
Directed by Oliver Laxe • Drama • With Ahmed Hammoud, Shakib Ben Omar, Said Aagli • 2016 • 93 minutes
Winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s stunning new film, Mimosas, is a breathtakingly shot Western that follows a mysterious caravan carrying a dying...
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Ziyara
Directed by Simone Bitton • Documentary • 2021 • 99 minutes
Celebrated documentary filmmaker Simone Bitton (Ben Barka, Wall, Rachel) returns with her most personal film to date. Inviting viewers on a cinematic pilgrimage to her homeland of Morocco, Bitton explores her Jewish roots through the sp...
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Tinghir Jerusalem
Directed by Kamal Hachkar • Documentary • 2011 • 86 minutes
In TINGHIR-JERUSALEM, filmmaker and historian Kamal Hachkar goes in search of a community that has vanished - and confronts fundamental questions of his own identity in the process. A Berber Muslim born in Tinghir, Morocco and raised in...
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Edward Said: The Last Interview
Directed by Mike Dibb • Documentary • 2004 • 114 minutes
Producer: D. D. Guttenplan; Interviewer: Charles Glass
Edward Said, University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, was one of the most important literary critics of the late 20th century, and for many y...
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First Passion
Directed by Philippe Baron • Documentary • 2010 • 52 minutes
The first cinematic depiction of the life of Jesus, Sidney Olcott's 1912 film FROM THE MANGER TO THE CROSS is the only movie ever shot in the places described by the New Testament. The fourth feature-length film release in the history ...