1. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE on Aflamuna
2. Larissa Sansour's SCI-FI TRILOGY and IN VITRO in Lithuania
3. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in Germany
4. MY NAME IS NOT ALI at Shasha Movies
5. NATION ESTATE and SOLOMON'S STONE in Germany
6. events
7. DVD/ of the month - PANOPTIC
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1. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE on Aflamuna

Ghassan Halwani feature documentary is presented in the May program of Aflamouna, curated by Mohammad Soueid on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of AFAC.

Content
Thirty-five years ago, I witnessed the kidnapping of a man I know.
He has disappeared since.
Ten years ago, I caught a glimpse of his face while walking in the street, but I wasn’t sure it was him.
Parts of his face were torn off, but his features had remained unchanged since the incident. Yet something was different, as if he wasn’t the same man.
Director Ghassan Halawani takes the viewer on a forensic paper chase, uncovering, layer by layer, the darkest chapters of Lebanese history on walls, in documents, and urban architecture.
essay-documentary, Lebanon 2018, color and black & white, 76 min, Arabic and English with English subtitles
more | trailer
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2. Larissa Sansour's SCI-FI TRILOGY and IN VITRO in Lithuania

Larissa Sansour's Sci-Fi Trilogy and IN VITRO by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind show on May 26th at Meno Avilys in Vilnius (Lithuania).

Sci-Fi Trilogy
Under the common themes of loss, belonging, heritage and national identity, the three films A Space Exodus (2008), Nation Estate (2012) and In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain (2015) each explore different aspects of the political turmoil the Middle East.
While A Space Exodus envisions the final uprootedness of the Palestinian experience and takes the current political predicament to its extra-terrestrial extreme by landing the first Palestinian on the moon, Nation Estate reveals a sinister account of an entire population restricted to a single skyscraper, with each Palestinian city confined to a single floor. In the trilogy’s final instalment, In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain, a narrative resistance leader engages in archaeological warfare in a desperate attempt to secure the future of her people. Using the language of sci-fi and glossy production, Sansour’s trilogy presents a dystopian vision of a Middle East on the brink of the apocalypse. more

In Vitro
In Vitro is set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. An abandoned nuclear reactor under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the apocalypse, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above.
In the hospital wing of the underground compound, the orchard’s ailing founder, 70-year-old Dunia is lying in her deathbed, as 30-year-old Alia comes to visit her. Alia is born underground as part of a comprehensive cloning program and has never seen the town she’s destined to rebuild.
short Sci-fi, Larissa Sansour & Soren Lind, Palestine/Denmark/UK 2019, 28 min, digital, picture ratio 1:2.66, Arabic with English subtitles
more | Trailer
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3. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in Germany

Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind's Sci-Fi Larissa Sansour is  invited to the film program of the Photo Biennale in Düsseldorf.

Content
In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain resides in the cross-section between sci-fi, archaeology and politics. Combining live motion and CGI, the film explores the role of myth for history, fact and national identity.
A narrative resistance group makes underground deposits of elaborate porcelain – suggested to belong to an entirely fictional civilization. Their aim is to influence history and support future claims to their vanishing lands.
short Sci-fi, Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind, Palestine / UK / Denmark / Qatar 2015, 29 min, cinescope, color, Arabic with Engl. or French ST
more | trailer
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4. MY NAME IS NOT ALI at Shasha Movies

Viola Shafik's anti-biography shows at Shasha Movies' April/May program on films in films.

Content
His anti-racist film Ali, Fear Eats Soul (1973) gained German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder international acclaim. The protagonist, an Arab foreign worker, was played by Moroccan El Hedi Ben Salem M'barek Mohammed Mustafa, Fassbinder's lover at that time. While the film itself courageously deals with the racism of post-war German society, its makers reproduced the insensibility and invention of the Other, fantasizing their own 'Salem'. Collage-like, through interviews and archive material, My Name Is Not Ali uncovers the invention of El Hedi Ben Salem by the Fassbinder troupe, an image not revised by most of its members till today.
Documentary, Viola Shafik, Egypt/Germany 2011, 93 min, German/Arabic/French with English ST
more
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5. NATION ESTATE and SOLOMON'S STONE in Germany

The two shorts are selected by the Arab Film Festival in Tübingen (Germany) for the International Short Film Night in Tübingen.

Nation Estate
Nation Estate is a 9-minute sci-fi short offering a clinically dystopian, yet humorous approach to the deadlock in the Middle East.
The film explores a vertical solution to Palestinian statehood: One colossal skyscraper housing the entire Palestinian population - now finally living the high life.
short Sci-fi, Larissa Sansour, Palestine/Denmark 2012, 9 min, digital, no dialogue
more | trailer

Solomon's Stone
Hussein, a Palestinian young man, receives a letter from the Israeli post office to appear in person to receive a package. He has to pay the sum of 20.000 $ US dollars in order to collect that package. Hussein’s curiosity to find out what the package contains drives him to sell everything he owns, despite the outright rejection of his mother, the matter that changes their lives afterwards.
The story is adapted from the novel Blue Light by Hussein Barghouty.
short film, Ramzi Maqdisi, Palestine/Spain 2015, 25 min, color, digital, Arabic with Engl. or French ST
more | trailer
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6. events

As part of the ALFILM - Arab Film Festival Berlin' Spotlight "Lebanon - From Civil War to Chaos: A Tribute to Filmic Resistance", Irit Neidhardt (mec film) conducted the film talk with director Volker Schlöndorff on his film CIRCLE OF DECEIT (1981). In the festival's Atelier "Arab Filmmakers in the Diaspora", she taught an in-house workshop on questions of film financing.
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7. DVD/ of the month - PANOPTIC

A new take on the genre of city symphony/documentary essay, Eid’s film offers a complex and poetic inquiry into Beirut’s underground and the roots of conflict in her country. (Variety)

Panoptic is a visual work, but Eid’s ability to play these images against experimental soundscapes results in a harrowing, affecting and captivating debut. (4:3 - Four Three Film)

Content
Panoptic is a letter from a daughter to her deceased father in an attempt to reconcile with her country’s turbulent past.
Panoptic delves into Beirut’s underground to explore Lebanon’s schizophrenia: a nation that thrives for modernity while ironically ignoring the vices that obstruct achieving this modernity.
While the Lebanese population has chosen to turn a blind eye to these vices, Rana Eid, an ordinary citizen, explores the nation’s paradoxes through sound, iconic monuments and secret hidings.
In a rare case where the sound landscape of a film dictates the visual landscape, Panoptic is a depiction of the turbulent Lebanese past and the way society copes with trauma.

DVD-Info
documentary, Rana Eid, Lebanon 2017, 69 min, Arabic
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
synopsis, credits, director's bio
PAL, region free

Subjects
Childhood, Civil War, Memory, Father-Daughter-Relation, Soundscape

Awards
Best Feature-Length Documentary Debut Film - Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival
Best Feature Film - Cinemigrante Buenos Aires
Award in the Human Latitudes Section - DocsMX
Special Mention - LatinArab Film Festival

Institutional rights
According to the rights you wish to acquire and your territory the fee varies, please contact us via email.

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