An Evening of Shorts Mondial 2010 | Directed by Roy Dib | 2014 | Lebanon The Disquiet | Directed by Ali Cherri | 2013 | Lebanon Blessed Blessed Oblivion | Directed by Jumana Manna | 2010 | Palestine A series of subversive short films by artists as oppose to film directors punctuate the Arab British Centre’s […]
West Beirut Directed by Ziad Doueiri 1998 | Lebanon West Beirut is a buddy film with a girl and a Super 8 camera in the middle. Written and directed by Ziad Doueiri, who started working in Hollywood as first camera assistant on Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the film is a coming of […]
I Love Cinema Directed by Oussama Fawzi 2004 | Egypt Movies might be fictional but somehow the young protagonist of I Love Cinema (Bahib Al-Sima) directed by Oussama Fawzi has his doubts. The young Na‘im asks his conservative Christian father, ‘If I go to hell will I see all the movie actors there?’ He doesn’t […]
Salvation Army Directed by Abdellah Taïa 2013 | Morocco Abdellah Taïa is a Moroccan author who has written a series of semi-autobiographical novels about his struggles and ambitions whilst growing up as a gay man in Mororcco. He was also one of the first Moroccan writers to come out, and his directorial debut Salvation Army […]
The Saturday Forum | 20 September 2014 Safar’s Saturday Forum at the ICA featured three sessions where theorists and directors dissecting the making and the impact of the 2011 revolutions on Arab filmmaking. The first of the three hour-long sessions opened with Dr Malek Khouri, a professor of film studies at the American University […]
Traitors Directed by Sean Gullette Morocco | 2013 Fatalism typifies most popular Middle Eastern films. If there is a woman character of substance, by the end of the film she is either ostracized by her family and friends or married off to someone. It brings to mind a Japanese proverb – ‘The nail that […]
Kit Kat’s Subversive Comedy Kit Kat Directed by Daoud Abdel Sayed 1991 | Egypt Safar’s artistic director, the curator Omar Kholeif always envisioned the biannual film festival as one that celebrates popular Arab cinema through a critical lens. ‘I want to critique the notion of popular,’ he said, ‘and also propose what could and should […]
Review: West Beirut Directed by Ziad Doueiri (1998) Part of Safar: The Festival of Popular Arab Cinema and the Arab Film Festival and Culture at the Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK. Poignant and emotionally charged, this coming-of-age drama, set in the Lebanese capital of Beirut paints the war torn city in 1975 through its civil bloodshed in deep shades […]
The Sparrow Directed by Youssef Chahine Egypt | 1972 Egypt’s best-known auteur Youssef Chahine (1926-2008) never shied away from controversial topic-matter during his six decades of filmmaking. An expressionistic non-linear approach to cinematic storytelling made his internationally award winning feature films – thirty-six in total – unique. The Sparrow (Al-Asfour), which was banned for two […]
PERSONAL ENCOUNTER WITH THE CINEMA CRITIC AND SCRIPTWRITER: RAFIK EL SABAN 18th July 2013, Cairo, Egypt. “The sweet voice of this 81 year-old man was enveloping and took us through a fascinating trip of knowledge and experience to the golden era of Egyptian cinema. I wish you had not left us so early, Rafik, so […]