1. IN VITRO in the USA
2. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE in Jordan
3. Larissa Sansour Sci-Fi Trilogy in the USA
4. THE DREAM (al-Manam) in the USA
5. QUNAITRA 74 in Portugal and in the USA
6. DVD of the month - THE DREAM
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1. IN VITRO in the USA

Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind’s Sci-Fi Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind is presented at the joint festival of Mizna Arab Film Festival and the Arab Film Festival San Francisco in December.

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, 1:2.66, Arabic with English subtitles
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2. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE in Jordan

The multi-awarded film by Ghassan Halwani can be seen in December at Karama Human Rights Film Festival in Amman (Jordan).

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. Larissa Sansour Sci-Fi Trilogy in the USA

The three short Sci-Fi's A SPACE EXODUS, NATION ESTATE and IN THE FUTURE THEY ATE FROM THE FINEST PROCELAIN show in December at the Arab Film Fest Collab in the USA.

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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4. THE DREAM (al-Manam) in the USA

Mohamad Malas' documentary classic is invited in December to the program the Arab Film Fest Collab in the USA.

Content
Shot in 1980-81, the film is composed of interviews with different Palestinian refugees including children, women, old people, and militants from the refugee camps of Sabra, Shatila, Bourj el-Barajneh, Ain al-Hilweh and Rashidieh in Lebanon. In the interviews Mohamad Malas questions them about their dreams at night. The dreams always converge on Palestine: a woman recounts her dreams about winning the war; a fedai of bombardment and martyrdom; and one man tells of a dream where he meets and is ignored by Gulf emirs. During filming Malas lived in the camps and conducted interviews with more than 400 people. In 1982 the Sabra and Shatila massacres occurred, taking the lives of several people he interviewed, and he stopped working on the project. He returned to it in 1986 and edited the many hours of footage gathered into this 45 minute film, released in 1987.
documentary, Mohamad Malas, Syria 1987, 45 min, Arabic with Engl., German or French ST
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5. QUNAITRA 74 in Portugal and in the USA

Mohamad Malas' short documentary is showing in December in the programm of DocLisboa in Portugal as well as at the Arab Film Fest Collab of Mizna Arab Film Festival and the Arab Film Festival San Francisco in the USA.

Content
A ceremonial gathering of the villagers of Quneitra on the Syrian Golan Hights after the Israeli army withdrew and returned the town inhabitable. The press takes photographs of the rubble. One woman starts running in the streets between the ruins, always making sure the audience does not leave her alone, contacting us through the camera. She strolls through the streets and alleys of her hometown, enters a house, cleans the shards of a window. A little girl appears, an old woman with her hens. Three females of three generations connected in solitude.
short film, Mohamad Malas, Syria 1974, 20 min, 35mm (available in digital format only), no dialogue
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6. DVD of the month - THE DREAM
Content
Shot in 1980-81, the film is composed of interviews with different Palestinian refugees including children, women, old people, and militants from the refugee camps of Sabra, Shatila, Bourj el-Barajneh, Ain al-Hilweh and Rashidieh in Lebanon. In the interviews Mohamad Malas questions them about their dreams at night. The dreams always converge on Palestine: a woman recounts her dreams about winning the war; a fedai of bombardment and martyrdom; and one man tells of a dream where he meets and is ignored by Gulf emirs. During filming Malas lived in the camps and conducted interviews with more than 400 people. In 1982 the Sabra and Shatila massacres occurred, taking the lives of several people he interviewed, and he stopped working on the project. He returned to it in 1986 and edited the many hours of footage gathered into this 45 minute film, released in 1987.

DVD-Info
Mohamad Malas, Syria 1987, 45 min, Arabic
Subtitles: English, German, French, Polish
Synopsis, credits, director's biography
PAL, region free

The director about the film
I think I managed to formulate a view that differs totally from other Arab and foreign contemplations. The difference is mainly that I adopted the position of a neighbor, thus and Arab, and not that of a Palestinian. This lead to me focusing rather on our mutual relations than on the conflict with Israel. The viewer might realize how I emphasized those nightmares which the Arabs caused in the lives of the Palestinians. My concern is to show how the Arab world is addressing the Palestinian cause: first one wanted to use the Palestinian issue and when this was not possible anymore, one tried to harm it. […] The fight between Israelis and Palestinians is as licit as public, yet the Arab-Palestinian conflict remains an internal affair, it happens in secret. (11th International Documentary Film Festival Munich 1996)

Price: 12,00 EUR (homevideo rights)
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