Produced by Baher Agarabiya & Nirah Shirazipour Released by Eyes Infinite Films/Majdal Films Canada/Palestine/USA. 75 min. Not rated English Arabic, and Hebrew with English subtitles With Ali Suliman, Guy El Hanan, Maisam Masri & Haale Gafori Mars at Sunrise attempts to bring an experimental cinematic consideration to the Israeli occupation, and has flashes of innovative […]
Directed by Jehane Noujaim Produced by Karim Amer Released by Noujaim Films Inc English & Arabic with English subtitles Egypt/USA. 104 min. Not rated The Square zooms into the large waves of demonstrations and counterattacks in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square that first erupted in the 2011 Arab Spring. Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim vividly finds and […]
An Indian father accompanies his young—and only—son, Siddharth, to an outdoor bus station. He waves goodbye to his smiling boy as the packed bus drives off 200 miles north, where Siddharth has been sent to work in a trolley factory. The boy, nicknamed Siddhu, is supposed to come back a month later for Diwali, but […]
Directed by Michael Mayer Produced by Lihu Roter & Mayer Written by Mayer & Yael Shafrir Released by Breaking Glass Pictures Hebrew & Arabic with English subtitles Israel/Palestine/USA. 96 min. Not rated With Nicholas Jacob, Michael Aloni, Alon Pdut, Jameel Khouri & Loai Noufi Out in the Dark takes an intensely intimate look beyond the […]
Directed by Eran Riklis Produced by Gareth Unwin & Fred Ritzenberg Written by Nader Rizq Released by Strand Releasing English, Hebrew & Arabic with English subtitles UK/Israel. 110 min. Not rated With Stephen Dorff, Abdallah El Akal, Alice Taglioni, Loai Noufi, Tarik Copti, Ashraf Barhom, Mira Awad, Ashraf Farah, Joni Arbid, & Ali Suliman Israel’s […]
Written and Directed by Haifaa Al Mansour Produced by Razor Film, Roman Paul & Gerhard Meixner Released by Sony Pictures Classics Arabic with English subtitles Saudi Arabia/Germany. 97 min. Rated PG With Reem Abdullah, Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Sultan Al Assaf & Ahd Wadjda charmingly promotes a quiet revolution in Saudi Arabia through the […]
Directed by Atiq Rahimi Produced by Michael Gentile Written by Rahimi & Jean-Claude Carriére, based on Rahimi’s novel Released by Sony Pictures Classics Farsi with English subtitles Afghanistan/France/Germany/UK. 102 min. Rated R With Golshifteh Farahani, Hamidrez Javdan, Hassina Burgan & Massi Mrowat The Patience Stone is as specific as it is mythic. Set in an […]
Written & Directed by Eliav Lilti Produced by Arik Bernstein Released by Alma Films Hebrew with English subtitles Israel. 93 min. Not rated Like diaries and letters in the old days, home movies are more and more being mined for their historical and sociological significance. The amateur footage edited together in Israel: A Home […]
Perhaps the two main stories that emerged from this year’s Cannes Film Festival were the jewelry heists (who knew Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale was so prescient?) and the praise and immediate backlash heaped on the Palm d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color, namely Elaine Sciolino’s piece in the New York Times in which […]