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
  • 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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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....

  • 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...

  • 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.

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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 ...