1. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER wins in Dublin and shows in New York
2. HAUNTED in Berlin, Nyon and London
3. FREE RANGE wins Gold FIFOG in Geneva and shows in Cairo, Berlin and Leiden
4. NATION ESTATE in Brussels, Cordoba and Seville
5. DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG in the Media Library of Vision du Réel in Nyon
6. ECCOMI… ECCOTI at Docs in Progress of Vision du Réel in Nyon
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1. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER wins in Dublin and shows in New York

We are happy to announce that Sarah Francis’ portrait of Beirut won the Best Documentary award at Dublin’s Silk Road Festival last month. In April the film is showing at the Art of the Real series at Film Society Lincoln Center in New York, which is running from April 10-26.

Content
A glassed van roams the streets of Beirut, home to a camera that explores the city behind the glass. Along the way, several people are invited to share a personal moment in this moving confessional. Each one comes as a face, a body, a posture, a voice, an attitude, an emotion, a point of view, a memory. Their confessions are true, blunt, and intimate. However, soon enough, the van empties again, and roams Beirut; restlessly looking for something, for someone.
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2. HAUNTED in Berlin, Nyon and London

Liwaa Yazji’s HAUNTED (Maskoon) is showing this month at ALFILM Arab Film Festival in Berlin, in the framework of DOC Alliance at Vision du Réel in Nyon as well as at the Mosaic Rooms in London

Content
In her feature documentary Syrian director Liwaa Yazji explores what it means to set off in a war. She meets friends and people previously unknown to her at their homes. Domiciles where they live now or where they yet live. Spaces that turned into a sought-after commodity.
When does one leave? What does one take? What aspects of life irretrievably end with the departure? How long can one sit tight? How do people call their departure? Are they refugees? Do they move? Do they leave? Do they see themselves as displaced people? Do they just move on? What does home mean? Which rights do they lose? From which loss can they protect themselves? What can they control?
By means of her collected stories Yazji draws quasi en passant the trace of the endless refugee movements in the region of the last 70 years.
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3. FREE RANGE wins in Geneva and shows in Cairo, Berlin and Leiden

Bass Bréch‘s Lebanese Spaghetti-Western FREE RANGE won GOLD FIFOG in the category The Jury PRICE SCHOOL INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF GENEVA, composed of students in the English class of Professor John Deighan. The Jury stated: “Free Range is a simple and complex story that deals with various topics: borders, cultures, religion, power politics. All these topics mingle and merge in the lives of ordinary people in a very effective subliminally.”
In April the film is showing at AFAC Film Week in Cairo and ALFILM Arab Film Festival Berlin both in the presence of eh director as well at International Short Film Festival in Leiden in he Netherlands.

Content
Based on actual events, Free Range is the story of a cow that crosses the border from Israel to Lebanon and meets with 16 year old Malakeh and her family. A  Lebanese Spaghetti-Western that talks about borders and power between people, religions, cows and UN interventions.
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4. NATION ESTATE in Brussels, Cordoba and Seville

Larissa Sansour’s Sci-fi short is travelling to the Eye on Palestine Festival in Brussels as well as to Cordoba and Seville with the association Handala in Spain.

Content
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.
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5. DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG in the Media Library of Vision du Réel in Nyon

Bassem Fayad’s DIARIES OF A FLYNG DOG which premiered in Dubai and showed in Beirut at the Cinema days Festival last week can be previewed by accredited festival visitors of Visions du Réel at the Media Library.

Content

Time has no beginning and no end, if it spins in a circle. Each point can be a start or a finish, or simply an abstract point. We can chose to begin and end, or we can chose to be.
A family of four generations in their house in the Lebanese mountains. A dog.
What does it mean to live in war that constantly changes features and never ends? What does it mean to care for a family in such a situation? Which values do you teach your children? What is society in a civil war? Or the nation? Can one heal before peace?
Using the example of his biography - from the first year of the civil war in 1975 till the early weeks of the Islamic State in summer 2014 - Bassem Fayad lovingly and courageously examines how life moves on while war rotates in and around it.
Lebanon/UAE, 2014, color, digital, 75 min, Arabic with English subtitles
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6. ECCOMI… ECCOTI at Docs in Progress of Vision du Réel in Nyon

Raed Rafei‘s essayist documentary Eccomi…Eccoti (I am here.. You are there), a co-production with mec film, is in post-production and will be presented at the Docs in Progress program of prestigious Vision du Réel festival in Nyon Switzerland this April.

Content
Two men. Two worlds. And a quest for a common future in a world beset with real and imaginary boundaries. Eccomi... Eccoti unfolds as a travel-log navigating between a European reality, a barricaded promised land for homosexuals, and an Arab context where several gay characters are in limbo between seeking acceptance and a desire for exile.
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