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Newsletter March 2019


1. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE in Mexico City, Bucharest and Buenos Aires
2. COUNTING TILES in Morocco
3. A WORLD NOT OURS in Berlin
4. PANOPTIC in Vienna and Buenos Aires
5. Larissa Sansour’s SCI FI TRILOGIE in Toulon und Rio de Janeiro
6. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER in Rio de Janeiro
7. event
8. VOD of the month: ON A MONDAY
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1. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE in Mexico City, Bucharest and Buenos Aires

Ghassan Halwani's Erased,___Ascent of the Invisible celebrates its Mexican premiere at FUCINAM in Mexico in early March, the Rumanian one in the middle of the same month at the One World Festival in Bucharest and at the end of March the film shows at the LatinArab Film Festival in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

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, Spanish or French subtitles
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2. COUNTING TILES in Morocco

Cynthia Choucair’s timely feature documentary is is part of the competition for feature documentaries at the Mediterranean Cinema Festival in Tétouan (Morocco) in March.

Content
A group of clowns travel to the Greek island of Lesvos on a mission to bring laughter to the waves of refugees crossing the sea to escape from war and enter Europe. Unwittingly, the clowns find themselves greeted with closed gates witnessing the effects of new policies enacted by the European Union towards the refugees.
Cynthia, the sister of one of the clowns, joins them on their journey which slowly becomes a reflection on the sisters’ own tale of displacement during the Lebanese civil war.
documentary, Cynthia Choucair, Lebanon 2018, 87 min, Arabic with Engl. ST
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3. A WORLD NOT OURS in Berlin

Mehdi Fleifel's multi award winning film shows on March, 14th, 15th and 16th in the framework of the Edward Said Days 2019 in the Barenboim-Said-Academy in Berlin (with Engl. ST). On the 16th the director is present for a Q&A after the screening.

Content
A World Not Ours is an intimate, humorous portrait of three generations in exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh in southern Lebanon. Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive and illuminating study of belonging, friendship and family. Filmed over more than 20 years by multiple generations of the same family, A World Not Ours is more than just a family portrait; it is an attempt to record what is being forgotten, and mark what should not be erased from collective memory.
documentary, Mahdi Fleifel, GB/LB/UAE 2012, 93 min, DCP, Arabic/English with German ST
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4. PANOPTIC in Vienna and Buenos Aires

Rana Eid's feature length city symphony is showing at the Women's Film Days in Vienna (Austria) in early March. At the end of the month it is invited to the LatinArab Film Festival in Buenos Aires (Argentina).

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.
documentary, Rana Eid, Lebanon 2017, 69 min, Arabic with Engl. or French ST
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5. Larissa Sansour’s SCI FI TRILOGIE in Toulon und Rio de Janeiro

Larissa Sansour's Sci-fi Trilogy shows at the Théâtre Liberté in Toulon (France) and at the Mostra de Cinema Árabe Feminino in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in March 2019.

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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6. BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER in Rio de Janeiro

Sarah Francis' city symphony of Beirut is showing at the Arab Women's Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in March.

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 or French subtitles
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7. event

On the occasion of the opening of The Media Majlis at Northwestern University in Qatar Irit Neidhardt (mec film) is moderating the panel The Final Stages: Viewership, Censorship and Distribution at 19.3.2019 at 19.00h in Projection Theatre
How do you distribute films without cinemas? What is the danger of being limited to the festival circuit? What can film festivals offer beyond distribution? Who censors? How do you secure a market for your film? How do you get distributors on board? And when is the right time to do this?
These are by no means clear-cut and transparent questions—even to members of the film industry.
Join Arab film distributor Irit Neidhardt in discussion with Merzak Allouache, Deana Nassar, and Hafiz Ali Abdulla  continue
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8. VOD of the month: ON A MONDAY

ON A MONDAY by Tamer El Said (In the Last Days of the City) at #Rewindayam. Since 20 years the independent Arab Film Festival Ayam Beirut al Cinema'iya is taking place. For it's 10th old treasures of the program are presented. Among them Tamer El Said's  short film On A Monday from 2004. You can watch the film at realeyz or at MMedia.

Content
Love emerges in the details in this innovatively simple day-in-the-life story of a married couple who one random Monday discover each other anew due to a change in routine.
short film, Egypt 2004, 8 min, Video, Arabic with Engl. or with French ST
more about the film | watch at MMedia | watch at realeyz