The only festival in the UK solely focused on programming Arab cinema, Safar returns to the ICA for its third edition with a selection of UK premieres ranging from Morocco all the way to Kuwait. Organised by The Arab British Centre and curated by Rasha Salti, this year’s festival will celebrate contemporary films that are singularly defiant of stereotypes, social taboos and self-censorship.
About Rasha Salti:
Rasha Salti is an independent film and visual arts curator and writer, working and living in Beirut (Lebanon). She co-curated The Road to Damascus, with Richard Peña, a retrospective of Syrian cinema that toured worldwide (2006), and Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema from the 1960s until Now, with Jytte Jensen (2010-2012) showcased at the MoMA in New York. She was one of co-curators of the 10th edition of the Sharjah Biennial for the Arts, in 2011. She co-curated with Kristine Khouri Past Disquiet: Narratives and Ghosts from the Exhibition of International Art for Palestine (Beirut, 1978), at the MACBA in 2015 and at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, in 2016. Salti edited Insights into Syrian Cinema: Essays and Conversations with Filmmakers (2006, ArteEast and Rattapallax Press), Beirut Bereft, The Architecture of the Forsaken and Map of the Derelict a collaboration with photographer Ziad Antar (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2010), and I Would Have Smiled: A Tribute to Myrtle Winter-Chaumeny co-edited with Issam Nassar, in 2010.