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Newsletter July/August 2017

1. mec film in August
2. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in Hildesheim
3. Larissa Sansour’s Sci-fi Trilogy in Douarnenez
4. LEAVING BAGHDAD in Leipzig
5. HAUNTED in Budapest and Sao Paolo
6. THE DRAM in Sao Paolo
7. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER and DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG in Lussas
8. Publication: It‘s all over! The Cinema for Peace in Jenin makes way for a Shopping Mall, now online (German)
9. DVD of the month – LEAVING BAGHDAD
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1. mec film in August

Like every year you receive a joint newsletter for July/August. In August the mec film office is not operating on a regular basis. Emails are handled every few days only.
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2. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in Hildesheim

Larissa Sansour & Soren Lind's Sci-fi IN THE FUTUTRE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN was shown at Kunstverein Hildesheim (Germany) in the framework of the exhibition “Promises of Monsters”.

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.
Palestine/Denmark/UK/Qatar 2015, 29 min, digital, cinescope, Arabic with English subtitles
more
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3. Larissa Sansour’s Sci-fi Trilogy in Douarnenez

In ist 40th edition the Filmfestival in Douarnenez (France) focuses on border. In this program Larissa Sansour’s Sci-fi Trilogy will be shown.

Larissa Sansour – Sci-fi Trilogy
In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain (2016) completes Larissa Sansour’s science fiction trilogy along with A Space Exodus (2008) and Nation Estate (2012). Under the common themes of loss, belonging, heritage and national identity, the three films 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.
To obtain preview links please send us an email.
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4. LEAVING BAGHDAD in Leipzig

Long before the term ‚Balkans Route‘ was on everyone’s lips Iraqi director Koutaiba al-Janabi made his feature fiction LEAVING BAGHDAD. In August it will be shown at the POLYLOID Filmfest in Leipzig (Germany).

Content
Baghdad in the early 2000s: Sadik, a personal cameraman to Saddam Hussein escapes Iraq. Hoping to join his estranged wife in London, he traverses several countries, is passed on from one smuggler to the next. The disappearance of his son, who did not share his father's enthusiasm for the regime, and scenes Sadik had filmed for work, haunt him alike whilst he tries to find his way out of the omnipresent and tormenting shadows of the regime.
As footage shot by fictional Sadik, Koutaiba Al-Janabi weaves real footage from Saddam Hussein's now accessible archive into his documentary style, slow paced fiction.
Koutaiba Al-Janabi, Iraq/UAE/UK 2010, 85 min, HDCAM, Arabic/Hungarian/English with English subtitles
more
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5. HAUNTED in Budapest and Sao Paolo

Liwaa Yazji’s HAUNTED shows in August at the Latin Arab Film Festival in Sao Paolo (Brazil) as well as in the side program of the Beyond Front@ festival in Budapest (Hungary).

Content
“When the bombs fell, the first thing we did was run away. It was not until later that we realized we had not looked back. We were not allowed to say goodbye to our home, our memories, our photos and the life that was lived within them. We have become vacant like these spaces; our hastily packed belongings and the forgotten things haunt us.” An uncertain existence followed the escape and expulsion from Syria that tumbled into a physical and mental nowhere, a non-space between yesterday and tomorrow. “Haunted” tells of the loss of home and security, of the real and metaphorical meaning which a house, a home has in one’s life.
Liwaa Yazji, Syria 2014, 112 min, digital, Arabic with English or French subtitles
more
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6. THE DRAM in Sao Paolo

Mohamad Malas‘ The Dream (al-Manam), by now a classic of Arab cinema, was released in 1987. In August the documentary will be shown at the Latin Arab Film Festival in Sao Paolo.

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.
Mohamad Malas, Syria 1987, Arabic with English, German or French subtitles, 45‘
You can download the catalogue of Mohamd Malas’ films at mec film here
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7. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER and DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG in Lussas

In the Focus Lebanon at this year’s edition of the documentary film festival in Lussas in the south of France, Sarah Francis‘ BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER and Bassem Fayad’s DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG will be presented.

Birds of September
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.
Sarah Francis, Lebanon/Qatar 2013, 99 min, digital, Arabic with English subtitles
more


Diaries of a Flying Dog
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, colour, digital, 75 min, Arabic with English subtitles
more
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8. Publication: It‘s all over! The Cinema for Peace in Jenin makes way for a Shopping Mall, now online (German)

The last part of Irit Neidhardt’s (mec film) trilogy about Cinema Jenin in the Palestinian Westbank is now, like the two earlier parts, online (in German language only)
The two other parts
Reinventing Palsestine. The Cinema for Peace in Jenin (2010) German  and Arabic
Cinema Jenin and no Peace (2011) German          
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9. DVD of the month – LEAVING BAGHDAD

Content
Baghdad in the early 2000s: Sadik, a personal cameraman to Saddam Hussein escapes Iraq. Hoping to join his estranged wife in London, he traverses several countries, is passed on from one smuggler to the next. The disappearance of his son, who did not share his father's enthusiasm for the regime, and scenes Sadik had filmed for work, haunt him alike whilst he tries to find his way out of the omnipresent and tormenting shadows of the regime.
As footage shot by fictional Sadik, Koutaiba Al-Janabi weaves real footage from Saddam Hussein's now accessible archive into his documentary style, slow paced fiction.

Koutaiba Al-Janabi, Iraq/UAE/UK 2010, 85 min, Arabic/Hungarian/English
Subtitles: English
PAL, no regional code

Subjects
Iraq, political violence, film, propaganda, Saddam Hussein, exile

Awards
Gulf Film Festival Dubai: First Prize
British Independent Film Awards: Winner of the Raindance Award
Monaco Charity Festival: Special Jury Award

Institutional rights: According to the rights you wish to acquire and your territory the fee varies, please place your order at order@mecfilm-shop.com
online stream: realeyz.tv
For DVD with home video rights visit mecfilm-shop.com

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