IFFR 2012

Khaled Hafez

The work is a 2-D and 3-D animation of a figure of the ancient gods, Anubis. A figure that dwells in the streets of urban Cairo today, intermingling with citizens and situations.

Signals: Power Cut

The A77A Project

Ali Heraize

A young man navigates through the cityscapes of contemporary Cairo with its contrasting crowds and finds himself out of place and struggling to be heard.

Adam

Heba Yossry

Narrative film in which Yossry portrays her own struggle to study cinema, and the confrontations she had with her family.

Another Passion

Petr Lom

A year after the euphoria on Tahrir Square, the demonstrators’ goals have not even come close to being reached. The country is ruled with an iron fist and there is still no democracy. The ‘eye of the world’ has moved elsewhere. How things have been in Egypt since 25 January 2011 is explained using five portraits of people from various walks of life.

Back to the Square

Joude Gorani

The Barada is the main river in Damascus. Once it was the city’s lifeblood which provided riches, but nothing now remains of that illustrious past.

Before Vanishing

Mostafa Youssef

In this story about brief encounters set in the Mediterranean Alexandria, the filmmaker sheds his light on death and compares it to the sea.

Blue Dive

Sandra Ghosn

Why do we want to be seen on Facebook? And how? To find out, the artist decided to emulate the profile pictures of a number of Facebook members.

Bombes

Ali Sheikh Khudr

A searching look back to another time and another place, filled with emptiness and void, where escape seems the sole solution.

City of Emptiness

Mohammad Ali Atassi

A portrait of the Syrian dissident Riad al-Turk, who managed to maintain his ideals through long periods of extreme harshness as a political prisoner.

Cousin

Reem Ghazzi

A traumatic incident has forced an elderly tailor into a crippled existence and the choice only to observe the world from a safe distance.

Crack

Diana El Jeiroudi

By editing together conversations with Syrian housewife Manal and the marketing manager of the Arab Barbie doll Fulla, director Diana El Jeiroudi outlines how - in 2007 - hard-working housewives and the Muslim Barbie are in the same boat.

Dolls: A Woman from Damascus

Ahmed Khaled

Doors of Fear is the first horror drama series in the Arab world. Dealing with different folkloric tales of horror from the Egyptian culture, the series is both innovative and relevant to the target audience.

Doors of Fear: El Naddaha

Mohammed Khan

Two women attempt to break free from the brutality and hopelessness of their impoverished lives in Cairo.

Dreams of Hind and Camilia (Fragment)

Mohamad Malas

A young widow and her two sons arrive in Damascus, only to find cruelty and rejection from her father. Dib, the eldest of the boys, comes of age while witnessing the successive military coups in Syria during the 1950s.

Dreams of the City

Siska

A video portrait of Lebanon’s national electricity building as an homage to a modernist project, linked to the very construction of Lebanon’s modern state.

E.D.L.

Nidal Hassan

What does a sculptor need? A small village surrounded by rocks. Friends. And nature as the greatest artist of all.

Flint Mountains

Reem Ali

A Syrian family struggles with memories of imprisonment and their care for a mentally disabled member while preparing their emigration to Canada.

Foam

Hala Alabdalla

Ammar Al- Beik

Memories of shared political activism, dreams and ideals converge in an intimate portrait of four women. All have changed through harsh experiences of prison and exile, yet they also managed to stay true to themselves.

I Am the One Who Carries Flowers to Her Grave

Tamer El Said

The lives of a group of friends from Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon have been shaped by their cities of birth and the instability of their region. Shot in Cairo, Baghdad, Beirut and Berlin.

In the Last Days of the City (Trailer)

Dina Hamza

In Dina Hamza’s latest documentary In/Out of the Room, a rare story unfolds of the life of a man whose job is to take lives.

In/Out of the Room

Islam Kamal

We follow four young people through Alexandria en route to the square outside the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It slowly becomes apparent what this meeting is all about.

Local Copy

Paul Hage Boutros

Who is the boss? The director, thinking and self-assured or the camera, a mindless machine? A power struggle with unexpected results.

Master-Slave Dialectic

Omar Robert Hamilton

A poised and elegantly executed ensemble piece of understated, emotionally-nuanced brilliance. Second short film by independent filmmaker Omar Robert Hamilton.

Maydoum

Emad Maher

An exceptional debut in which Maher - who spent two years working on this project - gave sound an important role in the telling of the story.

Neon Lamp

Lynn Kodeih

Questioning what it means to be a 'revolutionary' today, the artist explores hopes and disillusions in the context of recent Arab history in this live performance.

Of Heroes, Football and All That Remains of My Childhood

Short documentary about political prisoners struggling to come to terms with haunting memories, produced for the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On the Sand, Under the Sun

Ikon

A search for the artist’s roots as he travels to Japan and investigates a world that is partly foreign and fascinating, partly familiar.

One Eye Open

Salah Saouli

A vision of the city of Beirut at a crucial moment of transition from war to peace that draws the observer into a quasi-physical engagement.

Out of Focus

Ali Cherri

A memorable phone call between the Syrian cosmonaut Muhammed Faris (part of a Russian space mission) and the late president Hafez al-Assad.

Pipe Dreams

Hassan Khan

Developed through a series of intense workshops with an actress, the film investigates the psyche of an unspecified cultural operator - perhaps critic, perhaps curator.

Rant

Jasmina Metwaly

Remarks on a Square is a series of videos shot during and after the uprising in Cairo, Egypt in 2011. The series consists of twelve clips, 2-5 minutes in length, of particular moments shot during, after and around the Egyptian uprising.

Remarks on a Square

An experimental screen is split into the three colors of the flag - Red, White and Black - which represent the three promises of the 1952 Pan-Arab military coup-d’état/revolution: Social Equity, Liberty and Unity.

Revolution

Sherif El Azma

Beautifully crafted suspense in this stylish, black-and-white experimental Egyptian short that features a strong score by Nahla Mattar.

Rice City

Hazem Alhamwi

A thoughtful reflection on the working class district of the Old City of Damascus and the relations between the people and the built environment.

The Right Side of That Road

Rami Farah

Silence is an emotional investigation of sense and senselessness in the conflict over the occupied Golan Heights and the events leading to its loss. It is a film about loss and memory, and a tribute to people who remain human when faced with inhumanity.

Silence

The eccentric Abu Hajar has chosen a life in seclusion to escape an unsolvable personal conflict imposed on him by a rigid society.

Stone Bird

Basma Alsharif

An unknown author fails to write a love story as images and sounds develop into a search for human perception of history and truth.

The Story of Milk and Honey

Philip Rizk

In the Ahmonseto textile factory, capitalism cuts to the bone and the workers pay the price.

Sturm: Ahmonseto

In the village of Abuxa in the governorate of Fayoum, the Nile's water isn't flowing like it once did. Here, capitalism cuts to the bone and some villagers get no water.

Sturm: Fayoum

Life of a young family as they witness revolutions and birth, misery and hope, interlinked by the will to achieve change.

The Sun's Incubator

Homage to the old steam engine plant of Damascus, once a symbol of optimistic belief in development, but now a deserted and desolate place.

They Were Here

Rania Stephan

A rapturous elegy to a rich and versatile era of film production in Egypt through the work of one of its most revered stars, Soad Hosni, an exceptional artist who from the early 1960s into the 1990s embodied the modern Arab woman in all of her complexity and paradoxes.

The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni

Roy Samaha

Having travelled to Egypt to complete a commissioned work, the artist and his friend get caught up in the events of the Egyptian revolution.

Transparent Evil

Larissa Sansour

Youmna Chlala

An investigation of the nuanced relationship of Europe and the Middle East through a fictitious and lavish feast, where humour and the grotesque converge.

Trespass the Salt

Soudade Kaadan

An experimental theatre project is touring Syria. Through interactive plays, they investigate violence in its different forms and question traditional social rules.

In 'Signals: Power Cut'