by Alex Deleon for <filmfestivals.com>
The sixteenth edition of the Arab Film Festival (which travels to five cities in California) opened here on Friday, October 19 with a festive reception at the Screen writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. This is an intensive three day event which will screen as many films as can be squeezed into a long weekend. The opening night film was "Man Without a Cell Phone", a debut feature by Palestinian filmmaker Sameh Zoabi who has won various...
The Lebanese Pavilion, organized and financed by the Lebanese Ministries of Tourism and Culture, was present at the Cannes Film Festival for the eighth consecutive year. The pavilion hosted Lebanese film industry professionals, as well as institutions and associations working on the promotion of Lebanese cinema, such as the Lebanese Tourism Office in Paris, the Fondation Liban Cinema and the Metropolis association.
This year, for the first time, the Lebanese Culture Minister, Gaby Lay...
By Maria Esteves – March 25, 2012
The 16th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival 2012 (NYSJFF2012) closing night premiere documentary of IRAQ n ROLL, directed by Gill Gaon, was held at the Center for Jewish History, Thursday, March 22, 2012. Hosted by the American Sephardi Federation (ASF) in association with Yeshiva University Museum, the Pomegranate Award presented by ASF director Lynn Winters and renowned sculptor Oded Halahmy, Pomegranate Gallery, OH Foundation for the Arts, Inc., we...
Barbican FilmThe London Palestine Film Festival 2012 Friday 20 April – Wednesday 25 Aprilbarbican.org.uk/film Box Office: 0845 120 7527www.palestinefilm.orgFrom Friday 20 April to Wednesday 25 April, the London Palestine Film Festival returns to the Barbican. Opening with the UK Premiere of Sameh Zoabi’s debut feature, Man Without a Cellphone, the 2012 festival showcases more than 40 works, including a rare journey into the British imperial film archives, Susan Sontag’s striking 1974 film ...
Best Producer from the Arab World: Souney Kadouh, This Narrow Place (Lebanon, USA)“For an independent spirit and a determined effort”-ADFF PRESSphoto by Vanessa McMahon
Best Producer from the Arab World: Souney Kadouh, This Narrow Place (Lebanon, USA)“For an independent spirit and a determined effort”-ADFF PRESSphoto by Vanessa McMahon
Bruno Chatelin: Giuseppe I have just screened Ensemble by Mohamed Fekrane as part of the Tolerance day film program, this is a great idea, how did it start?
Giuseppe Cocciarelli: I received two months ago an email from this group of filmmakers in Tel Aviv where Palestinians and Israeli worked together on the same subject and made the film called “The coffee project”.
"Coffee – Between Reality and Imagination" is a cinematic collaboration between young Israeli and P...
On 'Son of Babylon'
Son of Babylon screened at this year's Copenhagen Film Festival 2011
‘SON OF BABYLON' (2010) is a fiction film based on reality about three
weeks following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the
Iraq War. Writer/director Mohamed Al-Daradji spent seven years on this
poetic masterpiece that touches on the timely and hypersensitive subject
of the Iraq War and the country now trying to pick itself up from
devastation and ruin.
...
‘SON OF BABYLON' (2010) is a fiction film based on reality about three
weeks following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the
Iraq War. Writer/director Mohamed Al-Daradji spent seven years on this
poetic masterpiece that touches on the timely and hypersensitive subject
of the Iraq War and the country now trying to pick itself up from
devastation and ruin.
This is a story not of war, however, but of the broken family and a lost
civilization. I...
‘SON OF BABYLON' (2010) is a fiction film based on reality about three weeks following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the Iraq War. Writer/director Mohamed Al-Daradji spent seven years on this poetic masterpiece that touches on the timely and hypersensitive subject of the Iraq War and the country now trying to pick itself up from devastation and ruin. This is a story not of war, however, but of the broken family and a lost civilization. It is a dark road movie followin...
‘SON OF BABYLON' (2010) is a fiction film based on reality about three weeks following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the Iraq War. Writer/director Mohamed Al-Daradji spent seven years on this poetic masterpiece that touches on the timely and hypersensitive subject of the Iraq War and the country now trying to pick itself up from devastation and ruin. This is a story not of war, however, but of the broken family and a lost civilization. It is a dark road movie following a ...
TFA presents two Official Selections from the eighth annual Tallgrass Film Festival for November’s Third Thursday Screening, co-sponsored by WSU’s International Education and Center for Women’s StudiesThe Tallgrass Film Association (TFA) will present two official documentary selections from the eighth annual Tallgrass Film Festival (TFF) as the TFA Third Thursday series continues in November. AFTER THE REVOLUTION (Mexico/Ireland), which had its North American premiere at the 2010 TFF will ...
Premiering here at the Montreal World Film Festival in the same week that saw U.S. President Barack Obama deliver a television address announcing the end of combat operations by the U.S. military in Iraq, the timing could not be better for the new American documentary film CAMP UNITY.
After more than seven years of bloody combat, the American role in Iraq has shifted to one of helping build a solid democracy from the ruins of a devastated nation. What role the 50,000 U....
The presence of the Hachemite Kingdom of Jordan was embodied at the Cannes 2010 Film Festival.
Representing the Royal Film Commision of Jordan at the Jordanian Pavillion at Village International, Nada Doumani, Communications and Culture Manager and Linda Mutawi, Production Services Manager, recalled the top spots for film destinations. The American film in competition FAIR GAME and Oscar winner The Hurt Locker, both were shot in the Kingdom, attesting to the suitability and ...
The recent partnership between Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), leading festival in the Arab world, Asia and Africa, and Beirut DC, a Lebanon based organization focused on encouraging independent filmmaking, hopes to foster local documentary filmmaking skills and production. According to "The Hollywood Reporter: The Daily Cannes," DIFF will be contributing $10,000 towards Beirut DC's Documentary Course, the goal of which is to motivate young people who wish to pursue profe...
In a first for the Berlinale, a film from Iraq had its world premiere last evening in the Panorama section. SON OF BABYLON, co-written and directed by Mohamed Al-Daradji, is a stirring drama about coming to terms with tragedy and moving forward despite the burden of personal loss. Filmed in stark poetic set pieces, the film follows the journey of a Kurdish grandmother and her precocious grandson as they travel (mostly on foot) to discover the fate of the boy's father, who has been miss...
By Maria Esteves - January 20, 2010
The 24th Israel Film Festival (IFF) U.S. Premiere of VOICES OF JERUSALEM, directed by Ofer Naim commenced Monday, December 7, 5:15pm at the School for Visual Arts (SVA) theatre, New York. This captivating, awe- inspiring hour long documentary explores the ancient city Jerusalem, Israel, and Ofer Naim quest to answer questions such as "Is there any hope or solution to the problems surrounding Jerusalem?" Interviews included Aliza Rosen, David Cro...
Director: Ofer naim.
Those who remember Jerusalem in its splendor have called it the city of gold.
It is a city remembered for its glorious past but with no future. Instead of dealing with the present, people remain involved in the past. This is what stands in the way of Jerusalem’s survival.
What happened to “Jerusalem of Gold”?
Is there any hope or solution to the problems surrounding Jerusalem?
Which of the three religions should have the right to control Jerusalem?
Should Jerusalem be the capital city?
Maybe all that is happening in Jerusalem stems from the ”Jerusalem Syndrome” that causes one to lose touch with reality and ones stability.
Did Israel and Jerusalem’s leaders suffer from this syndrome as well?
This movie tries to answer many of these questions talking to a number of people from various walks of life in this unique city and through the many songs sung longingly about this city, over time.
To raise public awareness to the importance of the non-fiction genre as an entertaining and informative tool.
The mission of the Lebanese Film Festival involves two aspects: promoting Lebanese cinema within Lebanon as well as abroad and encouraging the Lebanese filmmaking industry.
The filmfestival had been canceled owing to the security situation in Baghdad.
Two War Films, "Cold Tears", 2004, and "Night Bus", 2007. The war between Sadam Hussein's Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran lasted nearly a decade, from 1980 to 1988, and was treated as a kind of side-show in the western press, but it was the main event in that part of the world and has provided fodder for countless Iranian films ever since. Two of these were presented in the current survey. Dated 2004 and 2007 these films show that nearly 20 years down the line this war is still far from a ...
The round-table discussion “Division and Unity: Cinema in the Middle East” took place on Tuesday, November 18th at Stavros Tornes theatre, as part of the 49th Thessaloniki’s International Film Festival spotlight on Middle Eastern cinema. According to Dr. Hassan Βadawy, professor of History and Archeology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Middle East is a land of extremities, of faith in faithlessness, of being dogmatic about being non-dogmatic. ‘The major question for filmmakers ...
MEIFF to the achievements of “Arab Women Directors” & showcases a strong line-up in the “retrospective” on PalestineThe Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF), organised by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) is keeping up the momentum of its second edition with two of its most unique and important programmes: Arab Women Directors and a Retrospective on Palestine.Arab Women DirectorsThe Director of MEIFF, Nashwa Al Ruwaini explained that the Arab Women Dire...
Saturday, June 21-------How does one make a film based in a divided East Jerusalem that is not overtly political? That was the challenge for French director Georgi Lazarevski in his documentary film THS WAY UP, which had its East Coast Premiere at SILVERDOCS yesterday.The film is set in the Our Lady of Sorrows nursing home in East Jerusalem, a venerable (if delapidated) institution for aging Catholic Palestinians. Residents once had a sweeping view of the city of Jerusalem but that has been ...
