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SIFF – Arab movies and movies involving Arabs
April 14, 2022 - April 24, 2022
SIFF was quite disappointing this year when it comes to Arab films. Here are the three Arab films I found:
A Tale of Love and Desire (Tunesia)
Where: In person only: Tuesday, April 19, 6:30pm at AMC Pacific Place and Wednesday, April 20th at 3:30pm at Majestic Bay.
Sparks fly between literature students Ahmed and Farah in Leyla Bouzid’s seductive sophomore feature, when their study of erotic Arabic poetry moves beyond the classroom.
https://www.siff.net/festival/a-tale-of-love-and-desire
Costa Brava, Lebanon
Where: In person only: Friday, April 15, 1:30pm at AMC Pacific Place and Saturday, April 16th at 8:00pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown
A family moves from the squalor of Beirut to a green oasis: an off-the-grid chicken farm miles away. Then one day the squalor comes looking for them as plans are announced for a landfill right next door.
https://www.siff.net/festival/costa-brava-lebanon
Feathers
Where: In person only: Saturday, April 16, 9:00pm at AMC Pacific Place and Monday, April 18th at 3:30pm at Ark Lodge Cinemas
Egyptian patriarchy and misogyny are the targets and absurdism is the weapon as a man, via a birthday-party magician, is transformed into a chicken and his downtrodden wife realizes this may be a change for the better.
https://www.siff.net/festival/feathers-x27287
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And I hesitate to list these because they do not center Arab voices but they involve Arabs. Please watch trailers and read before deciding to watch these movies. They seem to be sympathetic to the Arab world but still come from the colonizer’s point of view.
Ahed’s Knee
Where: Virtual and Sunday, April 17, 8:30pm at AMC Pacific Place and Tuesday, April 19th at 3:00pm at Ark Lodge Cinemas
In this emotionally charged semi-autobiographical movie, Israeli writer/director Nadav Lapid’s alter ego fights against state pressure and for artistic freedom as he is working on a film about a Palestinian activist.
https://www.siff.net/festival/aheds-knee
The Olive Trees of Justice
Where: Virtual and Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 2:30pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown
The only French film shot on location during the Algerian War, The Olive Trees of Justice also won the inaugural Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962. American-born director James Blue (from Portland, OR), working with a mainly non-professional cast, clandestinely filmed in Algiers and the surrounding countryside under the pretext that he was making a documentary about the wine industry. Jean (Pierre Prothon), Algerian-born but long a resident of Paris, returns home to visit his dying father (Jean Pélégri, author of the autobiographical novel on which the film is based). His father, a pioneering colonist, once owned a prosperous vineyard, long since lost to creditors. In frequent flashbacks, Jean nostalgically remembers his idyllic childhood on the farm with Arab friends but realizes those days are gone. Amid tanks and bomb-disposal units prowling the city streets, Jean looks up old friends, encountering colonial oppression and racial inequity that he barely notices. Little seen at the time of its release just after Algeria achieved independence, this neorealist gem deserves rediscovery.
https://www.siff.net/festival/the-olive-trees-of-justice
The First 54 Years, an Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation
Where: In person only: Where: Virtual and Monday, April 18, 6:00pm at at Ark Lodge Cinemas and Thursday, April 21st at 1:00pm at AMC Pacific Place
Testimony from Israeli soldiers, speaking out for the first time as part of the “Breaking the Silence” project, is pieced together to reveal how their nation’s occupation of Palestinian territory has lasted so long.
https://www.siff.net/festival/the-first-54-years-an-abbreviated-manual-for-military-occupation
