 The Arab Film Week is an initiative of Eurient Association and a project of the German network of the Anna Lindh Foundation and will take place in two German cities: Leipzig from the 6th to the 12th of May and Weimar from the 3rd to the 9th of June 2010.
The 4th Arab Film Week focuses on independent cinema by featuring works of a new generation of independent filmmakers from the Arab world.
This trend is not a reaction to the growing influence of producers on filmmakers as has happened in the Western world, but is mostly caused by recent technical advances in film production. The use of digital cameras in particular does not only allow filmmakers to lower production and distribution costs but also to remain independent and keep a distance from censorship.
The Arab Film Week will feature six contemporary fiction films, documentaries and a programme of Lebanese experimental short films:
Le Chant des Mariées – Wedding Song
Director: Karin Albou
France/ Tunisia 2008 feature film 100 min
The film takes place in Tunis in 1942 during the German occupation. Two teens, Jewish Myriam and Muslim Nour, have been close friends since childhood. They live in the same house in a moderate Jewish-Islamic quarter and share the same girls’ dreams. While Nour regrets not being able to attend school, Myriam is daydreaming about love, and she envies Nour's liaison with her cousin.
Life changes radically due to the presence of German troops in Tunis. Nour's wedding is held up because Khaled, cannot find work – which he finally accepts at the German occupying forces.
Adopting the Vichy regime's policy, the German army demands reparation payments from Tunisian Jews. To be able to pay the required amount Myriam's mother promises Myriam’s hand to a wealthy and much older doctor. Myriam’s dreams of love fade away…
Khamsa
Director: Karim Dridi
France 2008 feature film 100 min
Since his mother abandoned him eleven year old Marco has lived in a nursing-home. Marco runs away seeking hideout in a gypsy camp near Marseille. Since his mother refuses any contact and his father is too busy with women and booze, Marco feels impelled to stay at the camp. Soon he realises that there is no future for him if he stays – his escape becomes more and more a dead end.
Bled Number One
Director: Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche
Drama France/ Algeria 2006 feature film 100 min
Bled Number One tells the story of the Algerian Kamel, who – after his expulsion from France – returns to his homeland, Kabylie in North-Eastern Algeria. Having grown up in the miserable outskirts of Paris, he remains a stranger in Algeria, a passive observer of a society struggling with enormous tensions and changes. He watches the occurrences around him: an attack of young Islamic fundamentalists against the village community, the slaughtering of an ox or the ordeal of Louisa, a woman having been kicked out of the house by her husband. She is now fighting for the care of her children.
With an aloof camera Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche stages this drama on the schizophrenic life between strict traditions and the perceptions of emigrants from France.
Ein Shams
Director: Ibrahim El-Batout
Egypt 2008 feature film 90 min
Today, Ein Shams is one of the most miserable and run-down areas of Cairo. Ein Shams is also the name of a young girl, one of the many characters in this movie. Through her eyes, the movie catches the sadness and magic of Egyptian everyday life. Frequently, she escapes into imaginary worlds, but what she desires most is to leave the constraints of her district behind and get into the centre of Cairo – into downtown. Another world just a few kilometres away – but out of reach for her. In a clutch of heart-rending occasions the miscellaneous characters show the intricacies of Egypt’s political system and its social structure.
The Time That Remains
Director: Elia Suleiman
Palestine, France, Belgium, Italy, UK 2009, 106 min
In four episodes Elia Suleiman tells the history of his family – from 1984 until today.
The movie is inspired by his father’s diaries – starting with his time in the “resistance” – and his mother's letters to family members, who were forced to leave the country.
Combined with Suleiman’s personal memories of both parents, the movie tries to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who stayed in their land and who live as "Israeli Arabs", as a minority in their own homeland.
Roma wa la n’touma – Rome Rather Than You
Director: Tarik Tequia
Algeria/France/Germany, 2006, 111 min
Kamel: “Kafka says the Statue of Liberty is holding a big club.”
Friend: “If someone says that, his visa has been refused.”
Kamel dreams of returning back to Italy, where he once baked pizzas, this time leaving Algeria with his girlfriend Zina. In order to get the needed papers, they go to deserted suburbs in search of an immigrant smuggler who can help them.
The couple has grown up among the violence that has plagued Algeria for more than a decade and taken more than 100,000 lives. The ongoing strife between government forces and Islamist opposition is so much a part of daily life that the young people ignore the danger they face on the road and take it as a kind of a holiday.
Real Bad Arabs
Director: Sut Jhally
USA 2006 documentary 60 min
This moving documentary is based on the book of Jack G. Saheen. From the beginning of silent film up to today’s glamorous Hollywood productions, the movie describes the various prejudices attributed to the Arab – Bedouins, bandits, obedient beauties, bad sheikhs and terrorists. By means of examples, the movie tries to give an answer to these stereotypes.
Lebanese short films - Reversed Gaze: Alienation in the City
The Arab Film Week will also feature a series of experimental films from young Lebanese filmmakers, their perception of European cities, referring to topics like the alienation in their homeland and abroad. The program was curated by Nadine Khalife (Beirut).
- The Other Orange, director: Hassan Choubassi, 2006, 23 min
- Gibraltar, director: Ghassan Halwani, 2005, 15 min
- As I Recall, director: Rima Kaddissi, 2007, 13 min
- Fabraka, director: Eli Alexandre Habib, 2008, 19 min
- That Other City, director: Anthony Abou Khalife, 2007, 22 min
- Both, Regie Bassem Breiche, 2007 Arabic w/ Engl Subs 11'20 min
For further information:
www.arabfilmweek.org
Information gathered by Elizabeth Grech
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