Middle Eastern Film Festival
2011 UALR Middle Eastern Film Festival, October 17-19
Please join us for seven amazing documentary and feature films from across the Middle East! After each film, a Middle Eastern Studies faculty member will lead a discussion about the film.
The film festival is FREE and open to the public. Films will be shown in meeting room D in the student center.
The schedule of films and discussants is below, followed by short synopses of each film.
Monday, October 17
2:30pm A New Day in Old Sanaa (feature film, Yemen)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Krista Lewis (Anthropology)
5:30pm Little Town of Bethlehem (documentary, Israel-Palestine)
Discussion Leaders: Dr. Krista Lewis and Dr. Clea Bunch (History)
Tuesday, October 18
1:45pm Veiled Voices (documentary featuring women in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Simon Hawkins (Anthropology)
3:30pm Bezness (feature film, Tunisia)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Simon Hawkins (Anthropology)
5:30pm Syrian Bride (Israel-Syria)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Clea Bunch (History)
Wednesday. October 19
2:30pm Hello America (feature film, Egypt)
Discussion Leaders: Dr. Simon Hawkins and Dr. Krista Lewis (Anthropology)
5:30pm Battle of Algiers (Italy-Algeria)
Discussion Leader: Dr. Jacek Lubecki (Political Science)
Film Synopses
A New Day in Old Sana’a, feature film, Yemen, 2005. The film is shown through the eyes of Federico, a photographer from Italy. Tariq (a friend of Federico) is scheduled to marry Bilquis, the daughter of a rich judge. However, while out in the city one night, he catches sight of a woman he believes to be Bilquis, and falls in love with her. The woman turns out to be a nagsh (a black plant applied like henna) artist named Ines, and Tariq ends up having to choose between the two.
Little Town of Bethlehem, documentary, Israel-Palestine, 2010. The film shares the gripping story of three men, born into violence, willing to risk everything to bring an end to violence in their lifetime. A Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew-shaped by events of their Palestinian and Israeli upbringing-find inspiration in the words and actions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
Veiled Voices, documentary, Egypt, Lebanon & Syria, 2009. The film introduces the audience to the world of Muslim women religious leaders, women who are reviving their leadership role in Islam across the Middle East. They are part of a growing movement that is increasingly willing to challenge the status quo from within the religion
Bezness, feature film, Tunisia, 1992. Set in one of Tunisia’s coastline tourist cities, it tells the contemporary story of a young man trapped between Arab tradition and prostitution. It portrays young people struggling with the perverse effects of tourism and the glaring contradictions between tradition and modernity.
Syrian Bride, Israel-Syria, 2004. The story deals with a Druze wedding and the troubles the politically unresolved situation creates for the personal lives of the people in and from the village. The movie’s plot looks at the Arab-Israeli conflict through the story of a family divided by political borders, and explores how their lives are fractured by the region’s harsh political realities
Hello America, feature film, Egypt, 2000. Focused on the misadventures of an Egyptian couple’s immigration to the United States, this popular comedy broadly satirizes both US culture and Egyptian preoccupations with America.
Battle of Algiers, Algeria, 1966. Ranked as one of the greatest films of world cinema, it covers the harrowing events of 1957, a key year in Algeria’s struggle for independence from France. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, it recreates the tumultuous Algerian uprising and the escalating violence on both sides.