1. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW in Tunisia
2. IN VITRO in Catalonia
3 THE DREAM in UAE and the UK
4. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE in China
5. DREAMS OF THE CITY in the UAE
6. mec films at Shasha Movies in July
7. Jury
8. DVD of the month - MY NAME IS NOT ALI
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1. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW in Tunisia

Sarah Francis experimental documentary was invited to the competition of the Gabès Cinema Fen Festival in Tunisia for the end of June.

Content
A group of people roams in a bare landscape around a set of swings as their only settlement, as if mapping, exploring, reorganizing the open territory they are in. As they move, changes in soundscapes make them virtually cross geographies. In the sky, a moon-like satellite roves above their heads, following them like an omen. The moon, once symbolizing cyclical times, myths and new beginnings, is now the satellite waiting to be conquered and colonized. Reality and fantasy intertwine in an existential quest. Is a new beginning really possible? As below, so above.
documentary, Sarah Francis, Lebanon 2020, 70 min, b&w and color, Arabic with English subtitles
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2. IN VITRO in Catalonia

The science fiction short film by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind showing in June at the Mostra de Cinema Àrab i Mediterrani de Catalunya (Spain).

Content
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
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3. THE DREAM in UAE and the UK

Mohamad Malas seminal documentary THE DREAM (al-Manam) is showing in June at the alternative CINEMAS film festival in Abu Dhabi (UAE) and in early July at the SAFAR Film Festival in London (UK).

Content
Shot in 1980-81, the film is composed of interviews with different Palestinian refugees including children, women, old people, and militants from the refugee camps of Sabra, Shatila, Bourj el-Barajneh, Ain al-Hilweh and Rashidieh in Lebanon. In the interviews Mohamad Malas questions them about their dreams at night. The dreams always converge on Palestine: a woman recounts her dreams about winning the war; a fedai of bombardment and martyrdom; and one man tells of a dream where he meets and is ignored by Gulf emirs. During filming Malas lived in the camps and conducted interviews with more than 400 people. In 1982 the Sabra and Shatila massacres occurred, taking the lives of several people he interviewed, and he stopped working on the project. He returned to it in 1986 and edited the many hours of footage gathered into this 45 minute film, released in 1987.
documentary, Mohamad Malas, Syria 1987, 45 min, Arabic with Engl., German or French ST
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4. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE in China

Ghassan Halwani and his film were invited to a virtual session at “My Film Ideology”, a weekly screening/panel series of the Young Director Support Project (YDSP) in Bejing (China).

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.
essay-documentary, Lebanon 2018, colour and black & white, 76 min, Arabic and English with English subtitles
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5. DREAMS OF THE CITY in the UAE

Mohamad Malas feature fiction, which in 2013 was among the top 10 of the “100 Greatest Arab Films List” that film professionals from the Arab World and associates of Dubai International Film Festival voted for, was invited to the alternative CINEMAS film festival in Abu Dhabi (UAE) in June.

Content
When his father dies, Dib, his younger brother and their mother (Yasmine Khlat) move away from their hometown Quneitra to Damascus. The mother’s despotic father reluctantly takes them in and tries to force the mother to remarry. Overwhelmed by the magic of the city, Dib wants to discover everything and is full of dreams. His daily life is shaped by insults and punishments however. Dib grows up against a backdrop of the political upheavals of the 1950s (the end of the military dictatorship in Syria and the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Nasser’s taking of power in Cairo, Egyptian and Syrian unification in 1958) and loses his childish illusions in the face of such violence and brutality. The dreams of the city prove to be a nightmare. Mohammad Malas’ partly autobiographical debut film marked the transition to auteur cinema in Syria.
fiction, Mohamad Malas, Syria 1984, 130 min, color, Arabic with Engl. or French ST
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6. mec films at Shasha Movies in July

Aleppo, Magams for Pleasure by Mohamad Malas; Birds of September by Sarah Francis; Counting Tiles by Cynthia Choucair; and The Mice Room by the Rufy's Collective are showing all July at the Shasha Movies VoD platform.
Please note that the mec film website is currently literally up side down, yet all info for the films linked above can be found.
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7. Jury

Irit Neidhardt of mec film was member of teh Documentary Film Jury of this years's Mediterranean Film Festival Tétouan online edition earlier this month.
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8. DVD of the month - MY NAME IS NOT ALI

This footnote to Fassbinder's ouevre should intrigue the many arthouse types still fascinated by the director's films and life. (Variety)

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.

DVD-Info
Viola Shafik, Egypt/Germany 2011, 93 min, German/Arabic/French
Subtitles: English
Synopsis, credits, director’s biography
PAL, no regional code

Subjects
Fassbinder, Fear Eats Soul, Racism, Cinema, Maghreb, Tunisia, Morocco, El Hedi Ben Salem, Myth, Homosexuality, Children, Biography

Award
Special Mention - The Monaco Charity Film Festival

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