Newsletter September 2018
1. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE honored in Locarno, showing in Toronto
2. COUNTING TILES in Argentina
3. PANOPTIC in Argentina
4. AND AN IMAGE WAS BORN in the USA
5. Larissa Sansour’s Sci-fi Trilogy in Argentina
6. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER in Berlin
7. New book: The Cinema of Muhammad Malas: Visions of a Syrian Auteur
8. Publication and event
9. DVD/VOD of the month: DIARY OF A MALE WHORE
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1. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE honored in Locarno, showing in Toronto
Ghassan Halwani’s feature length essay-documentary EARASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE was honored with a special mention in the category Best First Feature at the 71 Locarno Festival last month. On September 12th and 13th, 2018 the film shows at Toronto International Film Festival (Canada) in the Wavelengths section; in the presence of the director.
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, color and black & white, 76 min, Arabic and English with English subtitles
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2. COUNTING TILES in Argentina
Cynthia Choucair’s COUNTING TILES is invited to the international competition for the best first feature to the Argentinian Documentary Festival FIDBA (10.-16.9.2018).
Content
In February 2016, a group of clowns travel to the Greek island of Lesvos on a mission to bring laughter to the waves of refugees crossing the sea to escape from war and enter Europe. Unwittingly, the clowns find themselves greeted with closed gates witnessing the effects of new policies enacted by the European Union towards the refugees.
Cynthia, the sister of one of the clowns, joins them on their journey which slowly becomes a reflection on the sisters’ own tale of displacement during the Lebanese civil war.
Moments of humor and joyful laughter bring the clowns back to their original mission, ironically playing with reality to a point where the lines between their clown personalities and their real selves are blurred.
documentary, Cynthia Choucair, Lebanon 2018, 87 min, Arabic with Engl. ST
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3. PANOPTIC in Argentina
Rana Eid’s documentary shows at the Cinemigrante Festival in Buenos Aires (Argentina) between September 18th and 26th, 2018.
Content
Panoptic is a letter from a daughter to her deceased father in an attempt to reconcile with her country’s turbulent past.
Panoptic delves into Beirut’s underground to explore Lebanon’s schizophrenia: a nation that thrives for modernity while ironically ignoring the vices that obstruct achieving this modernity.
While the Lebanese population has chosen to turn a blind eye to these vices, Rana Eid, an ordinary citizen, explores the nation’s paradoxes through sound, iconic monuments and secret hidings.
documentary, Rana Eid, Lebanon 2017, 69 min, Arabic with Engl. or French ST
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4. AND AN IMAGE WAS BORN in the USA
Firas Khoury’s short film is invited to the Mizna Arab Film Festival at the Twin Cities (USA) in the end of September 2018.
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
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5. Larissa Sansour’s Sci-fi Trilogy in Argentina
The sci-fi Trilogy by Larissa Sansour continues travelling, in September it shows at the Cinemigrante festival in Argentina.
Content
Under the common themes of loss, belonging, heritage and national identity, the three films A Space Exodus (2008), Nation Estate (2012) and In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain (2015) 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.
All three films are distributed by mec film, you can book them individually or as package.
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6. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER in Berlin
Sarah Francis will be shown in the series Beyond Spring curated by Viola Shafik at the Werkstatt der Kulturen in Berlin on September 20th, 2018 with English subtitles.
Content
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.
documentary, Sarah Francis, Lebanon/Qatar 2013, 99 min, digital, Arabic with English or French subtitles
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7. New book: The Cinema of Muhammad Malas: Visions of a Syrian Auteur
As agent of Mohamad Malas’ body of work, mec film is happy to announce a new publication by Samirah Alkassim and Nezar Andary about the cinema of this important Syrian director.
The Cinema of Muhammad Malas. Visions of a Syrian Auteur
The first English-language book-length study of Muhammad Malas, his work, and his wide impact on Arab cinema and global cinema more broadly
Presents Malas’s work to give dimension and humanity to a country currently defined by ruin and catastrophe
Includes critical analyses and archival material, as well as original interviews translated from Arabic to English, to offer more in-depth perspective on Malas’s work
Part of a new book series on Arab cinema that provides intimate and innovative windows onto the Arab region and its filmmakers
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8. Publication and event
German quarterly inamo focuses in its summer edition on the racist murder-series of the “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) from the years 2000 till 2006 which mark a break in Germany’s history. The crimes that the NSU, its network and the part which the authorities played therein, has not yet been solved. A verdict was delivered in June 2018 though. For inamo Irit Neidhardt (mec film and inamo board member) reviewed Andreas Maus' feature documentary The Kuaför from Keupstrasse on one of the crimes NSU claimed.
talk: 06.09.2018 at 18:00 in the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek Berlin
Arab Film-making. A conversation with Irit Neidhardt (mec film) and Eva Kietzmann (ZLB Film Library) more (German)
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9. DVD/VOD of the month: DIARY OF A MALE WHORE
Esam, a young Arab war refugee who lives in Tel Aviv, makes his living as a male prostitute. His physical pleasure, that make him forget his hunger, remind him constantly of his childhood memories in his home village.
Inspired by the novel For Bread Alone by Mohammad Shukry.
short film, Tawfik Abu Wael, Palestine 2001, 14 min, color, Arabic with English subtitles
Festivals (selection)
European Short Film Biennale Ludwigsburg
Philadelphia Palestine Film Festival
Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Reikjavijk
Art Star Video Art Biennial Ottowa
Biennale Havana
International Video and Film Festival Jakarta
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
International Film Festival Rotterdam
Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival
Institutional rights
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