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Newsletter October 2022

1. THE DREAM in Barcelona
2. IN VITRO awarded in France and shows in Italy
3. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVIISBLE in the USA
4. DIARY OF A MALE WHORE in Germany
5. 1982 NINETEEN-EIGHTY-TWO in Germany
6. WAJIB in Germany
7. TEXT: The Mystery of Tycoon Michel Baida in Old Arab Berlin
8. DVD/ of the month - ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE
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1. THE DREAM in Barcelona

Mohamad Malas' classic of Arab documentary cinema is showing in October at the Autonomous University in Barcelona (Catalania/Spain).

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
more

You can purchase a multi-language DVD here.
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2. IN VITRO awarded in France and shows in Italy

Tthe short Sci-Fi by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind wins the Jury Award at the Regards sur la Palestine in Brétigny, Palaiseau and Orsay (France) and shows at the Prospettive femminili in Turino (Italy) in October 2022.

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, Arabic with English subtitles
more | trailer
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3. ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE in the USA

On 1 October 2022 Ghassan Halwany presented and discussed his essay documentary at Columbia University in New York (USA).

Halwani's exemplary structural intelligence and moral sophistication allows him to avoid the pratfalls of cinematic archivality: every minute counts
. (Cinema Scope)
Erased is a powerful, thoughtful film on death, trauma, and nationhood. (Scene Creek)

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.
Director Ghassan Halawani takes the viewer on a forensic paper chase, uncovering, layer by layer, the darkest chapters of Lebanese history on walls, in documents, and urban architecture.
essay-documentary, Lebanon 2018, color and black & white, 76 min, Arabic and English with English subtitles
more | trailer
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4. DIARY OF A MALE WHORE in Germany

Tawfik Abu Wael's short film classic showed on 4 October 2022 at the Athar Queer Film Festival in Berlin (Germany).

Content
Esam, a young Arab war refugee who lives in Tel Aviv, makes his living as a male prostitute. His physical pleasure, that make him forget his hunger, remind him constantly of his childhood memories in his home village.
Inspired by the novel For Bread Alone by Mohammad Shukry.
short film, Tawfik Abu Wael, Palestine 2001, 14 min, colour, Arabic with English subtitles
more | clip
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5. 1982 NINETEEN-EIGHTY-TWO in Germany

Oualid Mouaness' multi-award winning feature is presented in the framework of the School Cinema Days 2022 at Moviemento Berlin on 20 October 2022.The distributor will be present for discussion with the pupils after the screening.

Content
In June of 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, a country just north of its border was already reeling from its ongoing fractious war.  In this feature debut, director Oualid Mouaness revisits this cataclysmic moment in Lebanese history through a different lens: a kid's point-of-view at a quaker school on the outskirts of Beirut.  As the geopolitical conflict inches closer and closer, 11-year-old Wissam (Mohamad Dalli) is more intent on finding the courage to tell his classmate that he loves her.  For a dreamer like Wissam, who is more likely to be drawing than playing football, it's hard to comprehend the gravity of the impending violence.  But for his teachers, Yesmine (Nadine Labaki) and Joseph (Rodrigue Sleiman), the jets in the sky signal something far more dangerous.  As they try to mask their growing fears for the sake of the students, they also attempt to hide the fractures in their relationship. They fall on different sides of the political divide and look a way to reconcile a relationship that seems irreconcilable due the nature of the war besieging the country they love.
Fiction, Oualid Mouaness, Libanon/USA/Qatar/Norwey 2019, 100 min, Arabic with German subtitles
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6. WAJIB in Germany

Annemarie Jacir's multi-award winning feature shown on 20 October at Kino im Künstlerhaus in Hannover in the framework of the Filistina 2022..

Content
Abu Shadi is a divorced father and a school teacher in his mid-60s living in Nazareth. After his daughter’s wedding in one month he will be living alone. Shadi, his architect son, arrives from Rome after years abroad to help his father in hand delivering the wedding invitations as per local Palestinian custom. As the estranged pair spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head challenging their fragile and very different lives.
fiction, Annemarie Jacir, Palestine/France/Germany/Colombia/Norway/Qatar/UAE 2017, 96 min, Arabic with German ST
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7. TEXT: The Mystery of Tycoon Michel Baida in Old Arab Berlin

In the framework of The Markaz Review's focus WHY BERLIN? (edited by Viola Shafik), Irit Neidhardt (mec film) published the text The Mystery of Tycoon Michel Baida in Old Arab Berlin.

The Mystery of Tycoon Michel Baida in Old Arab Berlin
The Arab presence in Berlin has been continual since at least the end of the 19th century. Only in recent years has this history begun to be written. Some of the authors who trace biographies of Arab individuals in Berlin initiated official memorial plaques, with which the municipality commemorates people and events that were significant for the city. Since 2014, three such plaques have been added to remember Arab Berliners. Among them is the Egyptian (Sudanese) physician Mohamed Helmy (1901–1982), who came as a student in 1922 and stayed in Berlin for the rest of his life. In the late 1930s he was arrested twice by the Gestapo, before hiding several Jews from their Nazi persecutors. Another is Palestinian artist Jussuf Abbo (1890–1953, Yussuf (Abu) al-Jalili), who lived in Berlin between 1911 and 1935. He participated in the progressive art movements of his time and his work was exhibited in top galleries until the Nazis removed it as “degenerated” in 1937. The third is Mohamed Soliman (1878–1929), who traveled across Europe with a group of artists from Egypt around 1900 and stayed in Berlin. In 1906 he opened one of the first cinemas of the city. Soliman also owned the theatres in the famous Kaisergalerie and directed the “Oriental Department” of the Luna Park Berlin in Halensee.  

A contemporary of theirs was the merchant and gramophone tycoon Michel Baida. While much has been written about Baidaphon, the international record company that Baida ran together with his brothers Pierre/Boutrous and Gabriel/Jibril from their Berlin headquarters, little is known about Michel Baida’s life. Who was Baidaphon’s strategic mastermind? What traces did he leave in Berlin and what was his role in the anti-colonial struggle? continue
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8. DVD/VoD of the month - ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE

Erased is a powerful, thoughtful film on death, trauma, and nationhood. (Scene Creek)
Halwani's exemplary structural intelligence and moral sophistication allows him to avoid the pratfalls of cinematic archivality: every minute counts. (Cinema Scope)

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.

Ghassan Halwani, essay-documentary, Lebanon 2018, color and black & white, 76 min, Arabic and English
subtitles: English, French, Italian, Spanish
PAL, no regional code

Awards
Special Mention, First Feature - 71 Locarno Festival
Prix Ulysse Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole Best Documentary - Cinemed
Bronze Tanit for the best long documentary - Carthage Film Festival
Fathy Farag Prize for Best Artistic Contribution - International Film Critics’ Week at the 40th Cairo International Film Festival
Best Film - Laceno d'Oro
Special Mention, International Competition - Transcinema
Special Mention - LatinArab Film Festival
Best Documentary - Gabes Cinema Fen
Best Documentary - Malmo Arab Film Festival
Ogawa Shinsuke Prize - Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
Best Film, International Competition - This Human World

subjects
Lebanon, civil war, kidnapped, memory, post war order

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