Time: 
Country: United States
Actors:  Ayman Mohyeldin, Sherine Tadros
Genre: Documentary 
Language: Arabic | English

In 2008 two best friends found themselves trapped in one of the most dangerous places on earth – the only western journalists in the Gaza Strip on what was supposed to be a 24-hour assignment. The War Around Us captures the collision of veteran war correspondent and one of TIME’s most 100 influential people, Ayman Mohyeldin, with rookie reporter Sherine Tadros. As missiles shower the city and unspeakable atrocities emerge, the pair are torn by fierce professional rivalry, private terror and grim humor – with no way out and the whole world watching. Winner of Best Documentary, Newport Beach Film Festival.

(Synopsis courtesy of the 2012 San Francisco Arab Film Festival)

Time: 
Country: Egypt
Actors: Siham Abdel Messeeh, Namir Abdel Messeeh
Genre: Comedy | Documentary
Language:

Namir is a French filmmaker whose Coptic Christian parents moved to France in 1973. One day he watches a video of the Virgin Mary’s apparition with his mother who, like millions of other Copts, sees the Virgin while he sees nothing. Skeptical, Namir travels to Egypt, interviewing Christian and Muslim witnesses claiming to see the 1968 apparition. Comedic moments abound from his French producer’s exasperation as Namir veers from the prescribed documentary about inter-faith violence, to wrangling with his mother, a skeptic herself about his ability to not produce another failure, “just like your last.” Best Arab Documentary 2011 Doha Tribeca Film Festival. 2012 San Francisco Arab Film Festival Award, Outstanding Documentary Film.(Synopsis courtesy of the 2012 San Francisco Arab Film Festival)

Time: 4:00 pm
Country: Eqypt
Length: 120 mins
Genre: Documentary | War
Language: Arabic (english subtitles)

Every time 22-year-old Heba Afify heads out to cover the historical events shaping her country’s future, her mother is compelled to remind her, “I know you are a journalist, but you’re still a girl!” Defying cultural norms and family expectations, Heba takes to the streets to report on an Egypt in turmoil, using tweets, texts and Facebook posts. Her coming of age, political awakening and the disillusionment that follows, mirrors that of a nation seeking the freedom to shape its own destiny, dignity and democracy while celebrating a cultural shift where a younger generation inspired a country to lead themselves.

Time: 
Country: Spain
Length: 
Genre: Documentary
Language: Arabic

Egypt, a country under revolution. Cairo, a mega-city with the worst traffic in the world. From a ” fly on the wall” vantage point, viewers eavesdrop from the dashboard of a cab as taxi drivers and their diverse passengers talk and debate about their present, future and details that shape their daily lives. A lighter side of Egypt, captured during endless traffic jams.

Time: 
Country: Lebanon
Actors: Claude Baz Moussawbaa, Nadine Labaki, Yvonne Maalouf
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Language: Arabic | English | Russian

On the edge of a cratered road, a cortège-like procession of women solemnly makes its way towards the village cemetery. Takla, Amale, Yvonne, Afaf and Saydeh stoically brave the oppressive midday heat, clutching photographic effigies of their beloved menfolk, lost to a futile, protracted and distant war. Some of the women are veiled, others bear wooden crosses, but all are clad in black and united by a sense of shared grief. As they arrive at the cemetery gates, the procession divides into two congregations; one Muslim, the other Christian. Set against the backdrop of a war-torn country, “Where do we go now?” tells the heart-warming tale of a group of women’s determination to protect their isolated, mine-encircled, community from the pervasive and divisive outside forces that threaten to destroy it from within. United by a common cause, the women’s unwavering friendship transcends, against all the odds, the religious fault lines which crisscross their society and they hatch some extraordinarily inventive, and oftentimes comical, plans in order to distract the village’s menfolk and defuse any sign of inter-religious tension. A series of chaotic incidents tests the women’s ingenuity as they manage, with sass, to successfully stave off the fall-out from the distant war. But when events take a tragic turn, just how far will the women go in order to prevent bloodshed and turmoil?

Time: 5:00 pm
Country: France
Length: 75 mins
Genre: Drama
Language: French

Inspired by actual events, this gripping wartime espionage drama tells the little-known story of Muslim freedom fighters and a mosque that sheltered Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris during WWII. When Younes, a young and barely-literate Algerian immigrant, is arrested for black marketeering, he avoids jail by agreeing to become an informant, and spy on the activities of the Paris Grand Mosque. The authorities suspect that the mosque’s rector, Ben-Ghabrit, is harboring and aiding Resistance fighters, as well as clandestinely helping North African Jews by providing them with shelter, safe passage and false certificates of Muslim identity. But at the mosque, Younes befriends Salim, a charismatic Algerian singer with a surprising secret, and as Younes discovers the hidden work of the mosque, he soon finds himself having to decide where his loyalties truly lie. A tense game of cat-and-mouse ensues in this absorbing tale of political and moral awakening, as Younes shifts from collaborator to full-fledged Resistance fighter.