Arabian Cinema
A small watchlist of films made in Arab countries.
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- DirectorChadi Abdel SalamStarsAhmed MareiAhmad HegaziNadia LutfiAn Upper-Egyptian clan robs a cache of mummies and sells the artifacts on the illicit antiquities black market. After a conflict within the clan, one of its members goes to the police, helping the Antiquities Service find the cache.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsFaten HamamahYehia ChahineShukri SarhanA young man from outskirt rebels against his life and abandons his woman to go to Cairo.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsFaten HamamahOmar SharifZaki RostomA rich landlord floods and destroys a village on purpose to prevent the people living there from making a profit off their crops. What he doesn't know is that his own daughter is in love with Ahmed, a young man from the village.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsFarid El-AtrashShadiaAbdulsalam El-NabulsiEgyptian musical similar in plot to the US-British Hasty Heart: Five soldiers in a convalescent hospital are asked to befriend a nasty and misanthropic fellow patient who has little time left.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsFarid ShawqiHind RustumYoussef ChahineA newspaper salesman at the train station in Cairo develops an unhealthy obsession with a woman who sells refreshments.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsFairuzNasri ShamseddineJoseph AzarIn a peaceful village, the mayor, seeing that the population is bored with tranquility, invents the mystical figure of Rajeh, and tells stories to villagers about the exploits of Rajeh, who kills and maims and steals. One day the mayor (Nasri Shamseddine) tells the villagers that Rajeh is heading to the village itself and they better be careful. Two smart men notice that the mayor was lying and that it is all his imagination. So they go on making good on the fictitious person and steal money and assault the mayor in the dark saying that they were Rajeh. Eventually, an old man with the name of Rajeh arrives in the village, amid public fears. Then it became obvious that Rajeh was merely a seller of rings for weddings and he wanted to marry his son to Fairuz the nephew of the mayor. The two bad guys willingly go to jail for making use of the mayor's joke.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsMahmoud Al MelejiNagwa IbrahimEzzat El AlailiA small peasant village's struggles against the careless inroads of the large local landowner. The Land shows why political oppression does not necessarily lead to a sense of solidarity among the disinherited.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsSalah QabilAli El SherifMahmoud Al MelejiSet shortly before and during the Six-Day War in June of 1967, The Sparrow follows a young police officer stationed in a small village in Upper Egypt whose inhabitants suffer from the harassment of a corrupt businessman.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineFarouk BeloufaStarsMahmoud Al MelejiHuda SultanShukri SarhanFreed after spending 12 years in jail, a man's homecoming turns into a dark affair as his disillusion clashes with his family expectations.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsNaglaa FathiAhmed ZakiFarid ShawqiYehia is a young man living in the cosmopolitan Alexandria during World War II. Inspired by American movies and Shakespeare, he aspires to be an actor, but struggles to pursue his Hollywood dream, given the constraints of his life in the middle class and the horrors of war.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsYoussraYoussef ChahineHussein FahmyDuring a hunger strike by the Egyptian film industry, Yehia, a famous Egyptian director, finds himself obsessed with Amir, the leading man in one of his movies, and Nadia, a woman he desires to work with.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsNour El-SherifLayla OlwiMahmoud HemidaThe story is set in the 12th century in Arab-ruled Spanish province Andalusia, where famed philosopher Averroes is appointed grand judge by the caliph and his liberal court judgments are not liked by everyone. The caliph's political rivals, centered around the leader of a fanatical Islamic sect, force the caliph to send Averroes into exile, but his ideas keep on living thanks to his students.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsLatifaAhmad BedairAhmad WafiqDrama about Malak, a rich and famous singing star who, when her husband leaves her, takes up with the younger, handsome Lamei. What Malak can't see - but her family can - is that Lamei is only after her money.
- DirectorHenry BarakatYusuf MaloofStarsSamia GamalFarid El-AtrashLola SedkiWhen Asfour asks a genie he found to help him win the woman he loves, the genie has other plans of her own for him.
- DirectorHenry BarakatStarsFaten HamamahAhmad MazharAminah RizqThis compelling tale of love and betrayal, set in the upper Egyptian countryside, follows the story of Amna as she plots her revenge on the engineer who destroyed her family's honor.
- DirectorHenry BarakatStarsFaten HamamahZaki RostomAbdallah GheithA poor peasant woman becomes a symbol of worker oppression in this somber social drama directed by Henri Barakat. Azziza (Faten Hamama) is brutally raped by a guard when she goes into the fields to gather potatoes for her husband (Abdallah Gheiss). She does not relate the incident to her husband who is suffering from an undisclosed illness. Azziza hides the pregnancy and strangles the baby after it is born, but she also dies soon thereafter. The migrant workers rally around her memory as she becomes a martyr to the cause of the struggling peasants.
- DirectorNadine LabakiStarsNadine LabakiJoanna MoukarzelGisèle AouadA romantic comedy centered on the daily lives of five Lebanese women living in Beirut.
- DirectorNadine LabakiStarsClaude Baz MoussawbaaNadine LabakiYvonne MaaloufA group of Lebanese women try to ease religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in their village.
- DirectorSalah AbouseifStarsFarid ShawqiOmar SharifAminah RizqAfter the death of the father, the family consisting of a mother and two young men and a girl themselves without a breadwinner finds, to begin each of them in the direction to a different path, to err on the older brother (Hassan) to work drug, and graduated (Hussein) East of the Police College, while working (Nafisa) prostitution without the knowledge family, to hide them from the fate of many surprises.
- DirectorKamal SelimStarsFatma RouchdiMokhtar OsmanZaki RostomThe story of Mohammed the son of a barber who has recently got his degree, his lover Fatma, his rivel Al-Etr.
- DirectorKamal El-ShaikhStarsYoussef WahbiMadihah YusriImad HamdiA man with cardiac problems, had heart attack and sent his daughter to get the medicine from the drug store, however the pharmacist discovers that he sent the wrong medication, he cooperates with the police to stop a disaster.
- DirectorMoufida TlatliStarsHind SabriGhalya LacroixNejia OuerghiAs she grows up, Alia (the daughter of housemaid Khedija) learns the secrets of the peaceful palace where she and her mother live.
- DirectorNacer KhemirStarsNacer KhemirSoufiane MakniNoureddine KasbaouiA teacher is assigned to a remote desert village that is obsessed with a mysterious buried treasure and whose children are cursed to wander the desert.
- DirectorZiad DoueiriStarsRami DoueiriNaamar SahliMohamad ChamasIn April, 1975, civil war breaks out; Beirut is partitioned along a Moslem-Christian line. Tarek is in high school, making Super 8 movies with his friend, Omar. At first the war is a lark: school has closed, the violence is fascinating, getting from West to East is a game. His mother wants to leave; his father refuses. Tarek spends time with May, a Christian, orphaned and living in his building. By accident, Tarek goes to an infamous brothel in the war-torn Olive Quarter, meeting its legendary madam, Oum Walid. He then takes Omar and May there using her underwear as a white flag for safe passage. Family tensions rise. As he comes of age, the war moves inexorably from adventure to tragedy.
- DirectorNabil AyouchStarsMounïm KbabMustapha HansaliHicham MoussouneA group of children living on the street leave their gang, prompting retribution from the gang's leader. After one of the children dies, the rest try to come up with the resources to give their friend a proper burial.
- DirectorRadwan El-KashefStarsSeif AbdelrahmanManal AfifiHamdy AhmedThis film is an exploration of what happens to places in general, and people in particular, once the menfolk abandon an Egyptian village to investigate the greener-grass on the proverbial 'other side'. The womenfolk, those too old and those too young are left behind... and as the years pass, only letters return, telling tales of loneliness and hard-times. A young man, Ahmed, grows-up under these surroundings and has to deal with being the de-facto man-in-charge; when several of the migrant workers return one day, everyone has to come to terms with things being forever changed.
- DirectorAmr SalamaStarsHind SabriMaged El-KidwaniHany AdelA woman who suffers from AIDS decides not to surrender to the fatal disease. She exerts huge efforts in trying to recover or by helping those who suffer the same disease by giving them glimmers of hope.
- DirectorAmin MatalqaStarsNadim SawalhaRana SultanHussein Al-SousWhen an old airport janitor finds a captain's hat in the trash, he gets pulled into the lives of children in his poor neighborhood. He weaves imaginary stories of his world adventures to offer hope in the face of their harsh reality.
- DirectorElia SuleimanStarsElia SuleimanNazira SuleimanFuad SuleimanA Palestinian expatriate filmmaker (Elia Suleiman) documents the loss of national identity in Israel's Arab population.
- DirectorElia SuleimanStarsElia SuleimanManal KhaderGeorge IbrahimSeparated by a checkpoint, Palestinian lovers from Jerusalem and Ramallah arrange clandestine meetings.
- DirectorElia SuleimanStarsMenashe NoyElia SuleimanBaher AgbariyaAn examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day.
- DirectorHasan El-EmamStarsShadiaTawfik El DekenHussein FahmyThis film is based on a novel from 1947 by the Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. The story takes place during WWII and focuses on Al-Madak Alley, a teeming back street in Cairo which is presented as the microcosm of the world. A barber is in love with a young poor girl, who lives with her mother, and gets a job in an English Army camp to earn enough money for their marriage. But he is not the only one who wants to marry this girl and when the barber returns, she is gone.
- DirectorFatin AbdulwahhabStarsFouad El-MohandesShouweikarSamihah AyyoobA man who is struggling with life's daily problems , especially his troublesome wife , accidently runs into a man who makes bills that change human behavior and his life changes forever .
- DirectorAnwar WagdiStarsNagib El-RihaniLaila MouradAnwar WagdiIn this classic musical, poor old Hamam, a modest arabic teacher, falls in love with the young and beautiful Laila, his aristocratic pupil. Soon, he must decide between his unrealistic feelings or sacrificing his love for her own good.
- DirectorSalah AbouseifStarsFarid ShawqiEzzat El AlailiShouweikarThe story of the friendship that develops between two men with quite different world views. One, a water carrier whose wife has died twenty years before, spends his days thinking about her. The other, who works in the funeral business, spends his life in the pursuit of pleasure because he recognizes that death will bring an end to all enjoyment. They meet and become friends. Through this friendship the water carrier is encouraged to change his morbid way of thinking and to enjoy life.
- DirectorDaoud Abdel SayedStarsMahmoud Abdel AzizSherif MounirAida RiyadSheikh Hosny is a blind man who lives with his old mother and his frustrated son in the Kit Kat neighborhood. His son Youssef dreams of going to Europe to find work, and has a relationship with a divorced woman named Fatima. Sheikh Hosny refuses to admit his handicap and dreams of riding a motorcycle like every sighted person, he also spends his nights smoking marijuana with the locals in order to forget his miseries after the loss of his wife and selling his father's house. He knows everything about his neighbors and their secrets and love affairs.
- DirectorSalah AbouseifStarsFarid ShawqiTahiyyah KaryukaZaki RostomA fresh man came from outskirt to Cairo to look for work ; He meets a tycoon and creates a struggle between them .