1. DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG at Horizonte Competition at DOK.fest Munich
2. New in World Sales! THE MICE ROOM
3. FREE RANGE wins in Rabat
4. NATION ESTATE in Vienna and Cologne
5. HAUNTED in Ankara and Beirut
6. GLOW OF MEMORY. Retrospective of German-PLO Co-Productions
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1. DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG at Horizonte Competition at DOK.fest Munich

We are proud to announce that Bassem Fayad’s DIARIES OF A FLYING DOG celebrates its European premiere at DOK.fest Munich. The director will be present.

Content
Time has no beginning and no end, if it spins in a circle. Each point can be a start or a finish, or simply an abstract point. We can chose to begin and end, or we can chose to be.
A family of four generations in their house in the Lebanese mountains. A dog.
What does it mean to live in war that constantly changes features and never ends? What does it mean to care for a family in such a situation? Which values do you teach your children? What is society in a civil war? Or the nation? Can one heal before peace?
Using the example of his biography - from the first year of the civil war in 1975 till the early weeks of the Islamic State in summer 2014 - Bassem Fayad lovingly and courageously examines how life moves on while war rotates in and around it.
Bassem Fayad, 75 min, Libanon/UAE, Arabisch mit engl. UT
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2. New in World Sales! THE MICE ROOM

Rufy’s film-collective and mec film signed an international distribution contract for the group’s first feature length film THE MICE ROOM. In the Arab World Zawya Distribution in Cairo. Zawya’s Youssef Shazli can be contacted during the Cannes film festival for screeners and information about the film at yshazli at mifegypt dot com.

Content
Egyptian metropolis Alexandria just before the uprisings in 2011, a paralyzed population united in loneliness. THE MICE ROOM is a peek through the keyholes into some random citizens’ lives, old and young, male and female. The film-maker collective takes stock of its society, empathizes, and carefully searches for little gestures that can fuel togetherness and optimism.
In May 2010 the six members of the newly founded Rufy’s collective started working on The Mice Room, their first feature length film, which was completed in 2013.
Egypt / UAE 2013, 85 min, color, digital, Arabic with English subtitles
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3. FREE RANGE wins in Rabat

Bass Bréche’s Lebanese Spaghetti-Western won the Price for the Sensibilisation for Handicap at the Handifilm Festival in Rabat (Morocco).

Content
Based on actual events, Free Range is the story of a cow that crosses the border from Israel to Lebanon and meets with 16 year old Malakeh and her family. A  Lebanese Spaghetti-Western that talks about borders and power between people, religions, cows and UN interventions.
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4. NATION ESTATE in Vienna and Cologne

Larissa Sansour’s Sci-fi short restlessly travels – this month to the Vis Vienna Independent Shorts Festivals and Café Palestine Colonia.

Content
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.
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5. HAUNTED in Ankara and Beirut

Liwaa Yazji’s HAUNTED is showing at Metropolis in Beirut and at the Refugee Film Festival in Ankara in May.

Content
In her feature documentary Syrian director Liwaa Yazji explores what it means to set off in a war. She meets friends and people previously unknown to her at their homes. Domiciles where they live now or where they yet live. Spaces that turned into a sought-after commodity.
When does one leave? What does one take? What aspects of life irretrievably end with the departure? How long can one sit tight? How do people call their departure? Are they refugees? Do they move? Do they leave? Do they see themselves as displaced people? Do they just move on? What does home mean? Which rights do they lose? From which loss can they protect themselves? What can they control?
By means of her collected stories Yazji draws quasi en passant the trace of the endless refugee movements in the region of the last 70 years.
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6. GLOW OF MEMORY. Retrospective of German-PLO Co-Productions

From May 28th till June 13th Zeughauskino in the German Historical Museum in Berlin is showing the program GLOW OF MEMORY. Retrospective of German-PLO Co-Productions with works mutually produced by the PLO and GDR or the PLO and Federal German public bodies in the 1970s and 1980. All directors will be present to introduce and discuss their work. The program s curated by Irit Neidhardt, artistic consultant: Kais al Zubaidi. The catalogue is available online in German and Arabic here (pdf).
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