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- 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.
- DirectorAtef SalemStarsSamira AhmedImad HamdiHasan YoussefHusain is the head of a large Egyptian family, who has problems managing the cost of the marriage of his eldest daughter. He decides to take some amount from his financial trust in the company where he works with the intention of refunding later. In this context, the film shows the social life of the Egyptian family at the time.
- 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.
- DirectorNadine LabakiStarsClaude Baz MoussawbaaNadine LabakiYvonne MaaloufA group of Lebanese women try to ease religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in their village.
- DirectorEzz El Dine ZulficarStarsFaten HamamahOmar SharifZaki RostomNahr el Hub is the Egyptian adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina". Nawal, a rural girl, is married off to a wealthy aristocrat called Taher Basha (Zaki Rostom). Nawal gets increasingly depressed due to her husband's cold, cruel demeanor, despite their lavish life. Things take a turn (for both better and worse) when she meets Khaled (Omar Sharif), a handsome young army officer.
- 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.
- DirectorGeorges NasserStarsGaston ChikhaniShakib KhouriSuzette StellwyThe film follows the journey of a young boy from childhood to adolescence, as he begins to feel manhood growing inside of him, while the world around him treats him as a young child. He starts doing grown-up work, falls in love with a girl, and gradually steps into the troubled world of adults.
- DirectorLeila KilaniStarsSoufia IssamiMouna BahmadNouzha AkelIn Tangier, Badia and Imane, two young Moroccan girls of around twenty, walk in line amongst an army of workers who fill up the city with their coming and going back and forth. They both work in a shrimp-packaging factory, a difficult and humiliating job, where the strong odor of shrimp seeps into the pores of their skin. Badia's hands are busy but her head is idle; she perfumes herself with lies to wash away the shrimp smell and pretends to be someone else. Badia can flap her wings as much as she likes but she'll never fly.
- DirectorNouri BouzidStarsImed MaalalKhaled KsouriHabib BelhadiIn the ensuing days before his wedding bridegroom Hachemi faces both the anxieties of the future and the shadows of the past. His best friend, Farfat, is the topic of street graffiti and local gossip, which calls his manhood into question. This ripples out to affect Hachemi for, unbeknownst to anyone, as apprenticed youths they were molested by Ameur, the local carpenter. Farfat is banished from his father's home and the shared secret between the two friends threatens to undo more than just the wedding, but their very lives.
- DirectorMohammed Lakhdar-HaminaStarsYorgo VoyagisMohammed Lakhdar-HaminaLeila ShennaA meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian liberation national movement. The film demonstrates that the Algerian War was a slow process of revolts and suffering, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization of Algeria in 1830
- DirectorMaroun BagdadiStarsHippolyte GirardotRafik Ali AhmadHussein SbeityA French photograher is kidnapped and held hostage in a war-torn Beirut. Slowly but surely his integrity and self-respect is broken.
- 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.
- DirectorElia SuleimanStarsElia SuleimanManal KhaderGeorge IbrahimSeparated by a checkpoint, Palestinian lovers from Jerusalem and Ramallah arrange clandestine meetings.
- 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.
- DirectorKamal El-ShaikhStarsMohamed YahiaSamira AhmedKamal El-ShinnawiBoy Issam accidentally gets into a car that transports his family's belongings to Cairo. On the way, Issam overhears a conversation between the driver Hasanin and his henchman Elewa and learns that they are going to bury the corpse of the person they killed. The bandits discover the boy and hide with him in a house not far from the highway. Meanwhile, Issam's parents, along with the police, are looking for the boy. After a series of twists and turns, a happy father and mother find their son.
- DirectorMohamed MalasStarsNezar AbohajarSabah Al JazaeryFares Al-HelouThe Night is set in the village of Quneytra, which borders on the Golan, a key battlefield in the 1967 war between Syria and Israel. We are led to the grave of the filmmakers' father, an old Syrian fighter who joined the volunteer armies in Palestine in the Great Revolt of 1936. Trying to exorcise feelings of shame and humiliation that have long accompanied the image of his father and the village occupied by Israelis during the war of 1967, Malas tries to restore his father's history and give him a more honorable death. But tracing the outline of a memory tortured by burning questions finds only bitter answers.
- 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.
- DirectorHasan El-EmamStarsHussein FahmyShafik GalalSamir GhanemWhen a college professor falls for one of his students, his fiancée decides to expose the student's shameful secret to all.
- DirectorKhalid Al SiddiqStarsMohammed Al-MansourAmal BakrSaad Al FarrajThe first feature film to be made by the state of Kuwait. It is a period piece about Kuwait before the discovery of oil when fishing was the predominant occupation. Bay Ya Bahr is the story of a crippled pearl diver who forbids his son Mussaid to go to sea to dive for pearls. Mussaid's father got the 'bends' after resurfacing too fast during a shark attack on his boat. However, the boy cannot see any other way to make enough money to mary Nura, his beloved. Nura is the daughter of a merchant who wants her to marry for money. Finally, his father gives Mussaid permission to go to sea and even gives him his special black diving suit. Mussaid then works with the man to whom his father owes money. While Mussaid is away, Nura is forced by her family to marry a rich, older suitor. During his last dive Mussaid puts his hand inside a huge clam which closes on it. Mussaid is gasping for air and his friend has to amputate his arm in order to 'rescue' him. However Mussaid was dead long before he was brought to the boat. Nura meanwhile is raped by her husband on her wedding night. Mussaid's best friend looks through his cache of oysters and gradually starts opening all of them. Finally when he gets to the last one he finds a huge pearl inside. Maybe Mussaid's death will not be in vain if he can give this to Mussaid's family. When the boat reaches Kuwait, Mussaid's mother is welcomed by the dead body of her son and his prize - the pearl - for which he lost his life. The mother stares at the sea with unbridled rage and flings the pearl into it uttering the phrase: "Bas ya bahr" (enough oh sea)!
- DirectorMichel KhleifiStarsFarah HatoumSahar KhalifehThe first full length film to be shot within the occupied Palestinian West Bank "Green Line," FERTILE MEMORY is the feature debut of Michel Khleifi, acclaimed director of the Cannes Film Festival triumph, WEDDING IN GALILEE. Lyrically blending both documentary and narrative elements, Khleifi skillfully and lovingly crafts a portrait of two Palestinian women whose individual struggles both define and transcend the politics that have torn apart their homes and their lives.
- DirectorTewfik SalehStarsMohamed Kheir-HalouaniAbdul Rahman Al RashiBassan Lofti Abou-GhazalaThree men, stranded in Iraq, illegally cross the Syrian border to seek work in Kuwait, aided by a water-truck driver.
- DirectorZeina DaccacheStarsZeina DaccacheFor 15 months, 45 inmates, some completely illiterate, worked together to present an adaptation of Reginald Rose's famous stage play 12 Angry Men (known worldwide through the Sidney Lumet film starring Henry Fonda). The choice of play, which touches upon the themes of forgiveness, self- development, stigma and hope, was no accident. Daccache added monologues, songs and dance routines created by the prisoners to the original text. A must see, this remarkable documentary includes rehearsals, drama therapy sessions and interviews, revealing the tremendous dignity and despair of the prisoners as well as the charismatic Daccache's boundless energy and patience. Winner, Best Documentary, Audience Award, Dubai Film Festival; Audience Award, Dox Box, Damascus.
- DirectorHussein KamalStarsMagda El-KhatibAdel AdhamAhmed Al JaziriSet against the backdrop of the 1967 Six-Day War, the movie adaptation of Naguib Mahfouz's novel follows the escapist, drug-fuelled riverboat meetings of a group of frustrated Egyptians from various walks of life.
- DirectorPhilippe AractingiStarsNada Abou FarhatGeorges KhabbazRawia ElchabIn the wake of Israel's 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, a determined woman finds her way into the country convincing a taxi cab driver to take a risky journey around the scarred region in search of her sister and her son.
- DirectorNadine LabakiStarsZain Al RafeeaYordanos ShiferawBoluwatife Treasure BankoleWhile serving a five-year sentence for a violent crime, a 12-year-old boy sues his parents for neglect.