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Newsletter November 2019

1. NEW! IN VITRO by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind
2. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE awarded in Yamagata und Malmo
3. WAJIB by Annemarie Jacir carrying on in German cinemas
4. PANOPTIC in Sharjah
5. A SPACE EXODUS and NATION ESTATE in Oslo
6. DRY HOT SUMMERS in Bièvre
7. event
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1. NEW! IN VITRO by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind

mec film is pround to announce the international distribution of Larissa Sansour & Soren Lind's new short sci-fi. The film was commissioned by the Danish Arts Foundation for the Danish Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2019.

Content
In Vitro is set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. An abandoned nuclear reactor under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the apocalypse, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above.
In the hospital wing of the underground compound, the orchard’s ailing founder, 70-year-old Dunia (Hiam Abbas) is lying in her deathbed, as 30-year-old Alia (Maisa Abd Elhadi) comes to visit her. Alia is born underground as part of a comprehensive cloning program and has never seen the town she’s destined to rebuild.
short Sci-fi, Larissa Sansour & Soren Lind, Palestine/Denmark/UK 2019, 28 min, digital, picture ratio 1:2.66, Arabic with English subtitles
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2. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE awarded in Yamagata und Malmo

Ghassan Halwani wins the award for the Best Feature Documentary at the Malmo Arab Film Festival (Sweden) and the Ogawa Shinsuke Prize in the Section New Asian Currents at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (Japan). The film is part of the exhibition Beirut Lab: 1975(2020) at the University Art Galleries of the University of California in Irvine (USA), running through December 2019.

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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3. WAJIB by Annemarie Jacir carrying on in German cinemas

Annmarie Jacir's multi-award winning film carries on in German cinemas. In November it shows

since 31.10.2019 Bad Urach (forum 22)
3.+13.11.2019 Wiesbaden (Caligari Filmbühne)
6.11.2019 Cologne (Filmpalette)
from 10.11.2019 Weingarten (Die Linse)
from 14.11.2019 Bremen (City 46)

all updated screening dates here

Content
Abu Shadi is a divorced father and a school teacher in his mid-60s living in Nazareth. After his daughter’s wedding in one month he will be living alone. Shadi, his architect son, arrives from Rome after years abroad to help his father in hand delivering the wedding invitations as per local Palestinian custom. As the estranged pair spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head challenging their fragile and very different lives.
fiction, Annemarie Jacir, Palestine/France/Germany/Colombia/Norway/Qatar/UAE 2017, 96 min, DCP, Arabic with German ST
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4. PANOPTIC in Sharjah

Rana Eid's feature documentary is showing in November at the Sharja Arts Foundation in the United Arab Emirates.

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.
In a rare case where the sound landscape of a film dictates the visual landscape, Panoptic is a depiction of the turbulent Lebanese past and the way society copes with trauma.
documentary, Rana Eid, Lebanon 2017, 69 min, Arabic with Engl. or French ST

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5. A SPACE EXODUS and NATION ESTATE in Oslo

The two shorts of Larissa Sansour's Sci-Fi Trilogy are invitied for a panel on Arab Futurism at the Oslo World music festival in Norway.

Content
A Space Exodus quirkily sets up an adapted stretch of Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey in a Middle Eastern political context. The recognisable music scores of the 1968 science fiction film are changed to arabesque chords matching the surreal visuals of Sansour's film.
The film follows the artist herself onto a phantasmagoric journey through the universe echoing Stanley Kubrick's thematic concerns for human evolution, progress and technology. However, in her film, Sansour posits the idea of a first Palestinian into space, and, referencing Armstrong's moon landing, she interprets this theoretical gesture as "a small step for a Palestinian, a giant leap for mankind".
short Sci-fi, Larissa Sansour, Palestine/DK 2008, 5 min, English
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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.short Sci-fi, Larissa Sansour, Palestine/Denmark 2012, 9 min, digital, no dialogue
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6. DRY HOT SUMMERS in Bièvre

The 30 minute multi-awarded short filmby Sherif Elbendary is shown this months - in the presence of the director - at the Film Festival of Afrique sur Bièvre near Paris (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.
short film, Sherif Elbendary, Egypt/Germany 2015, 30 min, color, digital, Arabic with English, French or German ST
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7. event

On November 10th, Irit Neidhardt (mec film) is invited as panelist at the conference 1919/1989/2019: Regards croisés/Crossed perspectives Europe-Middle East, which is organized by the Goethe Institut togther with the Institut Français in Jerusalem, the IFPO (Middle-East French Institute) and the Quds-University in East-Jerusalem (Palestine).