The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) is pleased to announce the full program for the 2022 Arab Film Festival, running November 11-20, 2022 with a hybrid program of in-person and virtual events. For the full lineup and schedule, please visit arabfilmfestival.org. A list of available screeners can be found below.
The festival offers special programming to local audiences, and unprecedented access to the diversity and range of authentic Arab experiences. It has gained an international reputation for excellence and offers its audiences access to media that reflects the lives of under-represented and provocative themes and groups on a cultural and societal level.
The festival runs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at the Castro Theatre (San Francisco), Roxie Theater (San Francisco) and the New Parkway Theater (Oakland). The program spans 10 days, presenting 60 films from 18 countries, 22 directed by women. AFF2022 includes opening and closing parties, filmmaker mixers, classical films, industry and community panels, as well as filmmaking workshops. Select programs will also be simultaneously presented online, and highlights exhibited in-person in New York City and Los Angeles at a later date.
“This year's festival was truly a labor of love. With a record breaking number of submissions, the decision of what to showcase was a difficult one but we're proud of the decisions we made,” Yasmina Tawil, AFMI's Head of Programming and the festival's curator. “This year's program features some of the most beautiful, engaging, and unique films out of the Arab world in the last few years. Their stories go beyond the boundaries of culture, religion and sexuality, and tap into themes that are universal and deeply human. I hope audiences of all kinds will walk away from these films moved, inspired and, of course, entertained.”
OPENING NIGHT: The Blue Caftan
Morocco's entry to the 2023 Academy Awards
Friday, November 11 – 7:00 PM – Castro Theatre
Filmmaker in person. Followed by an afterparty at Slate Bar
Directed by Maryam Touzani, Morocco, 2022, 123 mins
Halim and Mina run a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco's oldest medinas. In order to keep up with the commands of the demanding customers, they hire Youssef. The talented apprentice shows an utmost dedication in learning the art of embroidery and tailoring from Halim. Slowly Mina realizes how much her husband is moved by the presence of the young man.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
Queer Films @ AFF
Shorts Program: Queer Lens
Saturday, November 12 – 6:45 PM – New Parkway Theater
This year's Queer Lens program focuses on the theme of Diaspora & Displacement and features award-winning short films that highlight the experiences of Queer Arabs around the globe. The characters in these stories all find themselves at the intersection of their identities. Some must reconcile the reality of their sexuality with a family who loves but does not understand, others work towards a life lived authentically in a society that does not accept them and a few explore leaving a place that is not safe even though it means letting go of those they care about. In this collection, audiences will find stories that may be unique in their details but are deeply relatable at their core and despite the difficulties, celebrate honesty and love over all.
Habib & the Thief (Sweden) dir. Naures Sager
The Window (Lebanon) dir. Sarah Kaskas
Faraway (Canada) dir. Aziz Zoromba
Dress Up (United States) dir. Karina Dandashi
Warsha (Lebanon) dir. Dania Bdeir
w/ Online panel: Arab + Queer + Film: Between here and there.
How does queerness as a lens engage with everyday precarity in the Middle East? How does queerness make sense of the alienating experience of displacement in the West? This panel thinks about the richness and diversity of queer film production in the Arab region and its diasporas. It discusses queer films as spaces of reflection and contestation, and as frameworks for alternative world-making. Panelists include filmmakers of the Queer Lens shorts program. Discussion moderated by Raed Rafei, filmmaker and PhD candidate in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Miguel's War
Saturday, November 12 – 2:00 PM – New Parkway Theater
Directed by Eliane Raheb, Spain/Lebanon/Germany, 2021, 128 mins
A portrait of a gay man who confronts the ghosts of his past. After fleeing war and repression 37 years ago, Miguel returns to Lebanon where he traces hidden longings, unrequited love and tormenting feelings of guilt.
Shall I Compare You to a Summer's Day?
Friday, November 18 – 8:50 PM – Roxie Theater
Directed by Mohammad Shawky Hassan, Egypt, 2022, 66 mins
A contemporary queer musical taking Arab folktales as its formal reference, and Egyptian pop music as its primary sonic material. It is based on the filmmaker's personal love diary and told in the form of a “One Thousand andOne Nights” tale, where stories playfully unfold through conversations between Scheherazade, a narrator who never comes into view, and ghosts of former lovers.
CENTERPIECE FILM
Memory Box
Saturday, November 12 – 8:30 PM – New Parkway Theater (Filmmaker In Person)
Encore: Sunday, November 20 – 5:30 PM – Roxie Theater
Directed by Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Lebanon, 2021, 100 mins
Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980's Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother's tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.
Memory Box is Lebanon's entry to the 2023 Academy Awards
UNITED STATES PREMIERES
The Alleys
Sunday November 13 – 8:30 PM – New Parkway Theater
Directed by Bassel Ghandour, Jordan, 2021, 116 mins
In a claustrophobic East Amman neighborhood, where gossip and violence run rampant, Ali, a hustler who pretends to be a businessman, has a secret relationship with Lana. Their romance is kept hidden until one day Lana's mother, Aseel, is blackmailed with a video of the young couple.
Hoping to avoid public embarrassment, Aseel discreetly convinces Abbas, a ruthless gangster, to put a stop to it… but things do not go so smoothly. Their lives start to intertwine and collide not just with each other, but with the other residents living amongst the same Alleys.
The Desert Rocker
Sunday, November 13 – 4:00 PM – New Parkway Theater
Followed by a Q&A with the director
Directed by Sara Nacer, Canada/Algeria/France/Morocco, 2022, 75 mins
The Desert Rocker is an intimate, witty and profound portrait of the extraordinary Hasna El Becharia, a pioneer Gnawa artist. The first musician to break through the social barrier of this culture, she empowers and inspires women of all ages by reclaiming a musical tradition reserved for men for centuries . A singularly talented artist, she leads women to redefine their roles and challenge cultural norms , one musical performance at a time.
Perhaps What I Fear Does Not Exist
Tuesday, November 15 – 7:40 PM – New Parkway Theater
Directed by Corine Shawi, Lebanon, 2021, 72 mins
When her father becomes suddenly paralyzed, the filmmaker spends four years in between hospitals finding shelter behind her camera away from a family tragedy. Rehabilitation centers, cemeteries, love making, VR experiments, fervent prayers and voice notes are the record of a filmmaker's journey trying to amend the impossible: finding absolution for a broken family by making her father walk again.
CLOSING NIGHT
The Stranger
Sunday, November 20 – 7:45 PM – Roxie Theater
Directed by Ameer Fakher Eldin, Syria/Palestine/Germany/Qatar, 2021, 113 mins
In a small village in the occupied Golan Heights, the life of a desperate unlicensed doctor who is going through an existential crisis takes another unlucky turn when he encounters a man wounded in the war in Syria. Overturning all community expectations in times of war and national crisis, he ventures forth to meet his newfound destiny.
For the full lineup and schedule, please visit arabfilmfestival.org
TICKET & PASS INFORMATION
General admission tickets for virtual screenings, Q&A's and panels range from complementary to $8. In-person admission is $14, $11 for students, seniors or low income people. Special presentations, such as opening night, range from $20 – $75.
Virtual-only passes are $60, Festival passes are $150 and VIP passes are $200.
For more information, please visit the ticketing information page at arabfilmfestival.org
