1. Note on the current distribution
2. Larissa Sansour SCI-FI TRILOGY at Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival online
3. ECCOMI ... ECCOTI at the Arab Film Series Online and Q&A
4. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE - online from Prague and physically in Berlin
5. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW - new in international distribution
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1. Note on the current distribution

Due to the international lock down there are countless online activities in which also films from the mec film catalogue are presented. As the programs often have a rather ad hoc character, the annoucement of screenings is not possible via the monthly newsletter. You find updates on the screening at the startpage of mec film.
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2. Larissa Sansour SCI-FI TRILOGY at Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival online

This year you can attend the Beirut based Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival online. The festival is running since 4th and till 18th of June 2020 In it Larissa Sansour's Sci-Fi Trilogy is presented.

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.
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Watch at Aflamouna
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3. ECCOMI ... ECCOTI at the Arab Film Series Online and Q&A

Raed Rafei road-movie shows this Pride Months in the Arab Film Series Online of the Arab American National Museum in partnership with the Arab Film Institute and Arteeast. You can watch an English language Q&A with the director held after a Oyoun screening in Berlin in May 2020 here here.

Content
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 shared moments 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 existential discomfort that blocks one from reaching a sense of complete-ness. 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
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4. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE - online from Prague and physically in Berlin

Ghassan Halwani's award winning documentary is new in the catalogue of the documentary platform DAFfilms and shows until 22 June 2020 in the country focus Lebanon.
If you are in Berlin you can physically watch the film in the framework of the exhibition Where Have All the Jasmines Gone? Erased,___Ascent of the Invisible is showing at 7 pm on each day of the opening weekend (Friday June 26 till Sunday 28, 6 – 9 pm). To reserve a time slot, please contact: coordination.artlab.berlin.de@gmail.com

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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5. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW - new in international distribution

NEW! mec film is happy to announce the international distribution and sales of Sarah Fancins' feature documentary which premiered at this year's Berlinale.

Content
A group of people roams in a bare landscape around a set of swings as their only settlement, as if mapping, exploring, reorganizing the open territory they are in. As they move, changes in soundscapes make them virtually cross geographies. In the sky, a moon-like satellite roves above their heads, following them like an omen. The moon, once symbolizing cyclical times, myths and new beginnings, is now the satellite waiting to be conquered and colonized. Reality and fantasy intertwine in an existential quest. Is a new beginning really possible? As below, so above.
documentary, Sarah Francis, Lebanon 2020, 70 min, b&w and color, Arabic with English subtitles
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