Middle East: What Can Cinema Do? is delighted to present 50 films over a 12-day period. Documentaries are in the majority, proving that the political and economic woes of the region have not stifled the filmmakers, but more fiction are being presented than ever before; certain filmmakers have pursued their cinematic talent finding new ways to communicate their messages. There are about twenty feature-length films, fifteen shorts and the other fifteen are mid-length films.
Works by these Middle Eastern film directors are complemented by a certain number of films by American and European directors, notably from Spain, France, Belgium and Sweden. All the films presented at the event, in alphabetical order, will be available below for you to discover.
Works by these Middle Eastern film directors are complemented by a certain number of films by American and European directors, notably from Spain, France, Belgium and Sweden. All the films presented at the event, in alphabetical order, will be available below for you to discover.
Screening date : 12/12/2009 -- 17h15
Creative Chaos: Round One
A little village in South Lebanon. A Lebanese filmmaker, after having taken his wife and daughter to safety, away from the Israeli bombings, comes back to his mother's house who even in the worst of times, refused to abandon her house and her newly planted orchard. He meets people who have lost everything and are still capable of joking, and life seems an irreversible cycle of destruction-reconstruction.
Screening date : 05/12/2009 -- 17h30
De Tel Aviv à Gaza, l’itinéraire de deux sénateurs
On January 25, 2009, two French senators arrived in the Near East, missioned by the foreign affairs committee to report on the political situation in the Middle East. From Tel Aviv to Gaza, over a territory ruined by three weeks of bombardment, they met a large number of people and witnessed the extent of the damage and of the work to be done.
Screening date : 06/12/2009 -- 15h30
Every Day is a Holiday
C'est le jour de la fête de l'indépendance du Liban : 3 femmes qui ne se connaissent pas prennent un même bus qui va les emmener à la prison située dans l'arrière-pays. Au milieu de cette terre aride, parsemée de mines et de rêves décapités, le voyage devient la quête de leur propre indépendance.
Screening date : 07/12/2009 -- 17h15
Filles d’Iran, un chemin secret dans la montagne
An old man is driving his van in the countryside to distribute books to young girls who are impatiently waiting for his arrival. He is but an illiterate man. They remind us what it means to live in a country where the position of women is one of inferior, and that we might have forgotten how education, intellectual curiosity and culture are the most efficient means to obtain equal rights in society.
Screening date : 04/12/2009 -- 20h
First Picture
Nour was born in an Israeli prison and lived there for over two and a half years with his mother. Then began the adventure of normal life with his father, and his family grieves that he should regret his mother's cell, his birthplace, his native world.