LAUNCH NIGHT: Mukhrijat: Arab Women Filmmakers season
Shorts + Panel discussion
To celebrate Mukhrijat: Arab Women Filmmakers season, we will show a special selection of shorts and hold a panel discussion with industry professionals who will talk about what defines “Arab” cinema.
We will be joined by actress and founder of the Arab Film Club Sarah Agha, BAFTA-nominated producer, curator and writer, and founder of Hakawati Elhum Shakerifar, and Syrian director Soudade Kaadan (The Day I Lost My Shadow, best debut, Venice 2018), whose most recent feature Nezouh is showing at AWAN.
This will be followed by a networking event in the bar. This event is held in partnership with the Arab Film Club and MENA Arts UK and with support from Shashat Women Cinema.
Line up:
Al-Sit 20min (Sudan, 2020)
Sudanese filmmaker Suzannah Mirghani’s Al Sit, shot entirely in Khartoum, was the most awarded Arab short of 2021.
Nafisa has a crush on Babiker, but her parents have arranged her marriage to Nadir, a young businessman living abroad. Nafisa’s grandmother Al-Sit, the powerful village matriarch, has her own plans for Nafisa’s future. (Clermont-Ferrand Canal+ Award, Busan Jury Prize)
Submarine 21 min (Lebanon, 2017)
Mounia Akl’s first feature El Gran Libano won the Audience Award at LFF and was Lebanon’s Oscar entry.
Under the imminent threat of Lebanon’s garbage crisis, Hala, a wild child inside of a woman, is the only one to refuse evacuation, clinging to whatever remains of home.
Strawberry 17 min (Palestine, 2017)
Born in Germany, filmmaker and Nas Radio presenter Aida Kaadan grew up in Baqa Al Ghabriyya.
Samir, 43, lives in Ramallah and has never seen the sea. He decides to sneak past the Israeli border to fulfil his dream of seeing the sea. Instead, he ends up at a construction site where Anas, 22, asks him to work for him.
Aziza 13 min (Syrian Arab Republic, Lebanon, 2019)
Soudade Kaadan's short film sees Ayman, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, teaching his wife how to drive his car, the only thing left for him from his country. The lesson takes a wrong turn into madness and nostalgia. (Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance)