1. GATE #5 by Simon El Habre (THE ONE MAN VILLAGE) – shooting completed
2. New in World Sales: MY NAME IS NOT ALI by Viola Shafik
3. Event: Before the Storm. Independent Arab Film.
4. Publications: Independent Egyptian Films – Independent from What?; Arab Film-Days: What has been possible already before the Change (Interview); Conformist Provocations
5. DVD of the month – JAFFA – The Orange’s Clockwork
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1. Gate #5 by Simon El Habre – Shooting Completed

Simon El Habre (THE ONE MAN VILLAGE) completed shooting his new feature length documentary GATE #5 in June. The film about truck drivers at the port of Beirut is produced by Georges Schoucair / Abbout Productions (Beirut) and Irit Neidhardt / mec film (Berlin) in cooperation with Paul Scherzer and Noura Kevorkian / Six Island Productions (Toronto) and supported by Enjaaz Fund of Dubai International Film Festival.
Content
Three truck drivers at the port of Beirut - and one at the hospital for dialysis. They are all in their sixties, waiting, waiting for life to move on.  The men take us on a journey back to the civil war period. A time filled with contradictions where it becomes impossible to distinguish facts from lies, myths from realities. A period longed to be forgotten and erased from the memory, yet weighing much on today’s life.
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2. New in World Sales: My Name is Not Ali by Viola Shafik

Egyptian-German filmmaker and scholar Viola Shafik completed her new feature length documentary ‘My Name is Not Ali’.

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.
Viola Shafik, EG/GER 2011, 92 min, HDCAM, color, German/Arabic with English, German or French ST
Festivals that wish to preview the film, please contact us.
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3. Event: Before The Storm. Independent Arab Film

„Before the Storm. Independent Arab Film“ was the title of the Arab film-week that the Goethe Institute presented in Berlin from 17.-22.6.2011 in cooperation with Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art. The first two evenings were devoted to the program Arab Shorts by the Goethe Institute and its artistic director Marcel Schwierin. At the following four evenings Irit Neidhardt presented the four feature length Egyptian fiction films that are regarded as independent and had a regular theatrical release in Egypt. In long and intense Q&A’s with the directors alternative approaches to film production were discussed. See the program.
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4. Publications: Independent Egyptian Films – Independent from What?; Arab Film-Days: What has been possible already before the Change (Interview); Conformist Provocations

Independent Egyptian Film – Independent of What?
Egypt is a regional power; not only politically but also with respect to the entertainment industry the country has been leading in the region since decades.
In the course of the nationalizing process of the Egyptian economy after its formal independence from England in 1922, entrepreneur and founder of Misr (Egypt) Bank, Talaat Harb, opened the Egyptian Society for Acting and Cinema in 1925 as one of several investment tools of his bank. Herewith two central aspects of Egyptian film were installed: it commercial nature and its preeminence in the Arab region. Continue full length in the catalogue of the film-week (German only)
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Arab Film Days: What Has Been Possible Already before The Change (Interview for Goethe Institute Medieninfo)
With the program “Before the Storm” Goethe Institute brings independent cinema from Arab countries
to Germany. At six evenings, from June 17th till 22nd, short and feature length films give an insights into
the time before the “Arab Spring”. Irit Neidhardt, one of the curators of the series, spoke with Regina Peper on Hollywood on the Nile, a new generation of film-makers and the “Arab Spring”. Continue
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Conformist Provocations. Remarks on Sherif Arafa’s „Terrorism and Kebab“
Sherif Arafa's Terrorism and Kebab from 1992 is one of the few Egyptian film comedies to date to attract international attention. With the current upheavals in the Middle East, the film is now being touted in the press and elsewhere as an early critical work. An objection by Irit Neidhardt
Continue in English or in Arabic
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5. DVD of the month – JAFFA – The Orange’s Clockwork

Content
Who doesn’t know it, the Jaffa-Orange? Since decades it has been tasty, healthy and famous. Stars like Ingrid Bergmann and Louis Armstrong posed for it – “Jaffa” was the Coca Cola of the juices. The history of prominent seaport Jaffa, whose remains are a neighborhood of Tel Aviv today, stretches back thousands of years. Till the beginning of the 20th century it was one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities in the Middle East – culturally, economically and politically. For centuries oranges were cultivated in its hinterland and exported via the city’s harbor.

In Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork Eyal Sivan traces the orange-brand on the basis of a unique composition of archival material. He shows old photos, early film-footage, commercials, political posters, and paintings on the orange to Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals and workers from the citrus-industry. They remember, reflect and analyze their personal and their country’s history using the example of the Jaffa-Orange. The different narratives complement each other, break myths and write a history beyond nationalist historiography. At the same time the visual self-manifestation of Zionist brand “Jaffa” shows the systematic creation of a legend.

Eyal Sivan, F/IL/B/D 2009, 88 min
Hebrew/Arabic/English/French
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic
Bonus: Interview with the Director, Photo-album, Historical Maps, 52 min-edit of the Film (Subtitles of the Bonuses: English and French)
PAL, no regional code, on stock

subjects
image-politics, oranges, memory, nationalism, Israel, Palestine, Christianity, photography, co-existence, Zionism, Britain, future

Awards
International Jury’s Prize, Filmmaker Milan (2009)
Young Jury Special Mention, Filmmaker Milan (2009)
Best Editing, Soleluna, Palermo (2010)
Best Film, Memorimage, Reus (2010)

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