1. Tribute to Mohamad Malas in Vesoul
2. CHRONIC and ECCOMI … ECCOTI in Tunis
3. New! AND AN IMAGE WAS BORN by Firas Khoury
4. HAUNTED in Beirut and materials for the film in German
5. Publication on Palestinian film-making
6. DVD of the Month: FREE RANGE
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1. Tribute to Mohamad Malas in Vesoul

The 24th International Festival of Asian Cinema takes place in Vesoul (France) from January 30th till February 6th, 2018. It honors prominent Syrian film-maker Mohamad Malas with a retrospective in the presence of the director.

Mohamad Malas, Memory and Life
In 1984, the international audience discovered Syrian cinema through ‘Dreams of the City’, a masterpiece of Arab cinema1. The city is Damascus. The dreamer is an adolescent whose evolution is similar to the director’s. When his father died, the latter left Quneitra, his native town in Golan, and migrated to Damascus. A new life starts for the mother and her children in a capital offering so vast possibilities. The young man is a witness to Syria in the fifties, the only democratic era of its history. Like other films by Mohamad Malas, ‘Dreams of the City’ is based on real facts and, in a powerful and poetical cinematic language, shows the influence of History on life and imagination. Continue at the festival website
Arab newspaper al-Hayat already reported about the event. Read article
see the catalogue of the Cinema of Mohamad Malas at mec film
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2. CHRONIC and ECCOMI … ECCOTI in Tunis

Feature fiction CHRONIC by Mohamad Sabbah and feature documentary ECCOMI ... ECCOTI by Raed Rafei show at the Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival Tunisia between January 15th and 18th, 2018.

CHRONIC
Omar, a Lebanese photographer, has a special experience with death and is trying to live his mourning through a new project. Following a casting, he receives three guests, one after the other.  One day, one house, bodies express stories of sex, love and trauma in the city of Beirut.
 Walid, a young dancer, avoids falling in love and getting attached. Omar seems to have a complex relation with dancers. He seeks a kind of revenge from Walid.
May, a Lebanese woman, lost her Syrian lover Kinan who died while escaping by boat across the sea to Europe. She tries to confront and comfort Omar. She tries to embrace him, in vain.
Antoine, a French-Lebanese man, used to live in Paris. He was on a visit to Beirut when he survived an explosion, what made him move back to Lebanon. He has a special lifestyle, violence plays a major role in his life. Omar and Antoine engage in a harmful game.
Visitor after visitor, chapter after chapter, Omar's pain is revealed and he is provoking danger.  feature fiction, Mohamed Sabbah, Lebanon/Germany 2017, 89min, Arabic with Engl. or French ST
see film page

ECCOMI … ECCOTI
Eccomi ... Eccoti unfolds as a virtual road trip navigating between Italy and Lebanon. Conditioned to live in a long-distance relationship with his partner because of strict European visa regulations, the director patches together the moments shared together in an attempt to create a possible day-to-day reality for their couple.
With a lyrical, ambient soundscape set atop a dreamy, atmospheric visual style that oscillates between still photography and moving images, the film explores what it means to be gay in contemporary Beirut and the aches of psychic pain that blocks one from reaching a sense of “complete-ness” with one’s self. Does such in-completeness have to do, in particular, with being gay? Or is it related to a grander malaise endemic to the human condition?
documentary, Raed Rafei, Lebanon 2017, 68 min, color, Arabic/French/Italian/English with Engl. ST
see film page
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3. New! AND AN IMAGE WAS BORN by Firas Khoury

We are happy to welcome Firas Khoury’s new short film in the mec film catalogue. In November the short was shown at renowned Film Days of Carthage in Tunis.

Content
Palestinian two years old Razi loves to hear the story of The Monster. The story is an allegory of the Palestinian problem but he is too young to comprehend the political association, he just wants to imagine and live through its details over and over again. The narrator has his own film in his head.
short film, Firas Khoury, Palestine 2017, 9 min,  Arabic with English or French ST
see film page
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4. HAUNTED in Beirut and materials for the film in German

Liwaa Yazji's feature documentary was showing at Sursock Museum in Beirut (Lebanon) on January 8th, 2018. Following the screening, there will be a Q&A session with the director, moderated by Ghassan Salhab.
Institutions can obtain a DVD or Blu-ray of the film with educational rights. To work with the film we provide the German language brochure 'materials', including the complete text-list of the 63 min version, a biography of the director, information about all places in the film as well as various maps.

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.
documentary, Liwaa Yazji, Syria 2014, 112 or 63 min,  Arabic with German ST, several other languages are available
see film page
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5. Publication on Palestinian film-making

Cinema as Self-Assertion: Films from Palestine. Introduction to the film series in REX Kino Bern / Switzerland in February 2018 by Irit Neidhardt (in German language only). Go to REX Cinema
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6. DVD of the Month: FREE RANGE

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.

Bass Bréche, Lebanon 2014, short film, fiction, 16 min, Arabic
Subtitles: English
DVD PAL, region free or VOD

The director about the film
"Free Range" is the story of an impecunious Lebanese family living on the border with Israel, a neighbor country that they learned to loathe and fear over the years.  When an Israeli cow surprises the family with an unexpected visit, the family has no choice but milking her, regardless of where she is coming from; hence committing an unforgivable act of disobedience to their local authority and ultimately there is a price that they have to pay.
In Southern Lebanon, the difference is huge between a cow and an Israeli cow, especially to the authorities on both sides of the border. Those who possess their power from the politics of fear they've embedded over the past decades and who continue to spread by any means. A manufactured fear; the fear from the other.
Looking into this family's life at the border, it's a common story not only in Lebanon but in many conflict zones around the world. Land-mines ravage the fields, and the victims are always ordinary people who end up as bystanders in their own lives. Watch themselves torn apart and live observing their slow death. They are the ultimate victims of this manufactured fear.
"Free Range" is a simple but yet a complex story that deals with various topics ranging from borders to cultures, religion, power and politics, and how they mix, merge and match subliminally in the life of ordinary people. (Bass Bréche)

Subjects
Borders, Handicap, Lebanon, Sheba Farms, War, Marginalisation

Awards
Gold FIFOG in the category The Jury Price School at Festival of Oriental Film in Geneva (Switzerland)
Price for the sensibilisation for handicap at Handifilm Rabat (Morocco)
Special Jury Award at Malmo Arab Film Festival (Sweden)

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