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Newsletter July/August 2016

1. DRY HOT SUMMERS wins in Oran, Florence and Bangalore and shows at festivals
2. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in competition in Guanajuato
3. Hommage to Syrian director Mohamad Malas in Lublin
4. NATION ESTATE in Rotterdam and Berlin
5. Sci-Fi Trilogy by Larissa Sansour in Brazil
6. FREE RANGE at the Best Of Festival
7. Office hours in August
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1. DRY HOT SUMMERS wins in Oran, Florence and Bangalore and shows at festivals

Sherif Elbendary’s DRY HOT SUMMERS won the Best Of Award oat the Middle East NOW festival in Florence/Italy, Best Short Film at Oran International Film Festival in Algeria and Best Director at the Bengalore International Short Film Festival in India. Moreover the film travels in the Egyptian provinces this summer and shows at Phares Short Film Festival in Arles/France.

Content
Two lonely people at opposite chapters of life accidentally meet on a busy summer day in a Cairo taxi. Frail old Shawky and bubbly young Doaa are both caught up in their busy routines as their race through the city evolves into a journey of self-discovery that reconnects them to life.
Egypt/Germany 2015, 30 min, digital, color, Arabic with English or French subtitles
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2. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in competition in Guanajuato

The new Sci-Fi by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind is currently showing at the competition for experimental film s at prestigious Expresion en Corto Festival in Guanajuato in Mexico.

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
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3. Hommage to Syrian director Mohamad Malas in Lublin

The Summer Film Academy in Zwierzyniec in Poland is dedicating a special program to renown Syrian director Mohamad Malas in August. In the presence of the director his film classics DREAMS OF THE CITY and THE NIGHT will be shown as well as his feature length PASSION and LADDER TO DAMASCUS and medium length documentary films THE DREAM and OVER THE SAND, UNDER THE SKY (co-directed by Hala Albadallah).

mec film is serving as agent for Mohamad Malas oevre. Together with Dunia Films in Damascus we make copies available or connect you to the distributor in your territory.
see the Mohamad Malas catalogue
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4. NATION ESTATE in Rotterdam and Berlin

Larissa Sansour’s short Sci-fi NATION ESTATE from 2012 is showing at the White Nights of Rotterdam International Film Festival this summer as well as at the Wilde Moehre Festival in Berlin.

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.
Larissa Sansour, Palestine/Denmark 2012, 9 min, digital, no dialogue
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5. Sci-Fi Trilogy by Larissa Sansour in Brazil

Larissa Sansour’s Sci-Fi trilogy is showing at the Arab Film Festival of Brazil this month.

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 (2009) 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.
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6. FREE RANGE at the Best Of Festival

Lebanese Spaghetti Western FREE RANGE by Bass Bréche showed at the Best Of Shorts Festival in La Ciotat in France earlier this month. The festival is presenting only works that won awards at other festivals before.

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.
Lebanon/Germany 2014, 16 min, digital, cinescope, Arabic with English subtitles
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7. Office hours in August

In August the mec film office will not be operating regularly. We will read your emails every two to three days though.
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