1. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER - Fundraising Campaign Beirut Over and Over
2. CHRONIC Solidarity Screenings in Amsterdam and Barcelona
3. IN VITRO in Mexico, Canada and the USA
4. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in Riga
5. SOLOMON'S STONE in Leiceter
6. PANOPTIC at the Shoman Foundation online
7. A SPACE EXODUS in London
8. online panel
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1. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER - Fundraising Campaign Beirut Over and Over

Sarah Francis' extraordinary city portrait of Beirut is showing in the framework of the fundraising campaign Beirut Over and Over on 15.9.2020 at Kino Endstation in Bochum (Germany) and on 9.9.2020 in Osnabrück (Germany). Moreover it is showing tín the same campaign in Montreal (Canada).
Beirut Over and Over is equally distributing the monies to:
- Egna Legna Besidet እኛ ለኛ በስደት: Fundraising for food and medicine for domestic workers affected by the explosion. Community-based feminist organisation working in Lebanon and Ethiopia and led by a former domestic worker.
- Sawa for Development and Aid: Lebanese organisation that works with Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
- Disaster Relief for the transgender community
- Funding campaign for LGBTQ victims of the Beirut Explosion
- Matbakh El Balad: Group of volunteer activists running food distribution.
- Basmeh and Zeitooneh for Relief and Development: A foundation that supports the most marginalized communities in the Middle East.
- Lebanon Solidarity Fund by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and Cultural Resource (Al Mawred al Thaquafi): An international fundraising campaign to support the culture and the arts community within Beirut under the Lebanon Solidarity Fund. The raised funds will be fully channelled to support affected arts and culture organizations and spaces based on the identification of urgent needs. The fund will also support individual artists who lost their homes, instruments and equipment.

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 subtitles
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2. CHRONIC Solidarity Screenings in Amsterdam and Barcelona

On the initiative of the International Queer & Migrant Film Festival in Amsterdam, Mohamad Sabbah's full-length feature will be shown on September 19th in Lab 111 in Amsterdam and also in September in Barcelona. The fee of teh ticket sales will be passed on to support the film scene in Beirut.

Content
Beirut is a city where any person can experience loss at any moment . Walid lost his hope for love. May couldn't say goodbye to her lover. He died in the sea. Antoine was about to lose his own life.
Omar a photographer lost his male lover in an explosion. He casts the three and invites them to his studio, and together they express stories of sex, love and trauma in the city of Beirut. Visitor after visitor, chapter after chapter, Omar loses control and provokes danger.
feature fiction, Mohamed Sabbah, Lebanon/Germany 2017, 89min, Arabic with Engl. ST
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3. IN VITRO in Mexico, Canada and the USA

Larissa Sansour & Soren Lind's short black and white dystopia shows shows in September online at Guanajuato International Film Festival (Mexiko) as well as at the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (Canada), at the DC Palestine Film and Art Festival (USA) and the Chicago Palestine Film Festival (USA).

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 is lying in her deathbed, as 30-year-old Alia 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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4. IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PORCELAIN in Riga

The sci-fi by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind is presented at the end of September at the Riga Photography biennial in Latvia.

Content
In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain resides in the cross-section between sci-fi, archaeology and politics. Combining live motion and CGI, the film explores the role of myth for history, fact and national identity.
A narrative resistance group makes underground deposits of elaborate porcelain – suggested to belong to an entirely fictional civilization. Their aim is to influence history and support future claims to their vanishing lands.
short Sci-fi, Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind, Palestine / UK / Denmark / Qatar 2015, 29 min, cinescope, color, Arabic with Engl. ST
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5. SOLOMON'S STONE in Leiceter

Ramzi Maqdisi bitter sweet short comedy shows in the beginning of September at the online edition of the Journey's Festival in Leiceter (UK).

Content
Hussein, a Palestinian young man, receives a letter from the Israeli post office to appear in person to receive a package. He has to pay the sum of 20.000 $ US dollars in order to collect that package. Hussein’s curiosity to find out what the package contains drives him to sell everything he owns, despite the outright rejection of his mother, the matter that changes their lives afterwards.
The story is adapted from the novel Blue Light by Hussein Barghouty.
short film, Ramzi Maqdisi, Palestine/Spain 2015, 25 min, color, digital, Arabic with Engl. ST
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6. PANOPTIC at the Shoman Foundation online

Rana Eid's acoustic portrait of Beirut will be streamed on September 22nd, 2020 at the Shoman Foundation in Jordan (without geoblocking), followed by a Q&A with the director (event in Arabic). Please check the exact time and link at the Shoman Foundation.

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. ST
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7. A SPACE EXODUS in London

Larissa Sansour is part of the short film program of the online edition of Safar, the Arab Film Festival in London (UK).

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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8. online panel

In the framework of the 11. ALFILM Nomad Edition in the SPOTLIGHT-program „Resistance is Female“
Panel Discussion »Arab filmmakers and feminist filming«
16.9.2020 at 17:00 (German time) Online

The lives of women in films from the Arab world are often viewed with particular interest by the audience. Especially in exceptional situations of war and conflicts, feminine or feminist perspectives seem to offer connecting points for the audience, international colleagues, and funding institutions alike. How do the filmmakers position themselves between these poles of internal and external expectations, their own attitudes in film politics and the local production conditions?
What are the priorities and what influence does their work and attitude have on the perception of the situation in and outside the Arab world? Naziha Arebi, director of FREEDOM FIELDS, Waad Al-Kateab, co-director of FOR SAMA, and Zahraa Ghandour, leading actress of THE JOURNEY will discuss with moderator Irit Neidhardt, author, curator, and film distributor at mec film. (in English)