Our picks for March include 4 films from Mauritania, Lebanon & Morocco, one of which falls in the framework of our partnership with Aflam Festival, “A Way Home” by Karima Saïdi.
Where to?
“Where to?” is the first film representing Lebanon in the official competition at Cannes Film Festival in 1957. The original 35 mm Fine Grain Master Positive was scanned, retouched, and color-corrected in a resolution of 4k. The restored copy of the film, initiated by Abbout Productions and Fondation Liban Cinema, was screened during the Cannes Classics section of the Film Festival in 2017.
“Where to?” addresses the issue of migration and exile, the agony of residing in a country without a future, and the cruelty of an exile that does not keep its promises of a better future.
*As part of our February picks in partnership with Aflam Festival.
A Certain Nasser
Directed by Antoine Waked and Badih Massaad, this feature documentary retraces the compelling journey of Georges Nasser, the pioneer filmmaker, while highlighting the birth of Lebanese author cinema and its struggles to exist even today.
In this film, Nasser tells his own story with candor, humor and grace, a fascinating tale of unprecedented success, struggle, and disappointment. A story that also reflects the history of a country and its national cinema.
Awaiting for Men
In her intimate film documentary set in the small oasis town on the edge of the Sahara Desert in southeast Mauritania, director Katy Léna Ndiaye focuses on three independent women practicing traditional painting by decorating the walls of the city. In a society seemingly dominated by tradition, religion, and men, these women express themselves artistically, open up about their experiences of marriage, sex, divorce, and motherhood, and freely discuss the relationship between men and women.
Before the Dying of the Light
This glittering collage of posters, magazine covers, archive footage, jazz music, and cartoons takes you back to the art scene of 1970s Morocco, viewed from the perspective of the artists and actors themselves. Many of them were to end up in prison or disappear without a trace. Dedicated to the victims of censorship and oppression, “Before the Dying of the Light” by Ali Essafi employs riotously edited fragments and evokes a time of excitement about the future before it was extinguished by the repressive years under King Hassan II.
Now that these images are shown once again, flame is briefly rekindled.
A Way Home
“A Way Home” by Karima Saïdi is an intimate film about a facet of the Moroccan immigration history in Belgium, told by a mother and her daughter meeting again after years of separation. But it is also a documentary about memory fading away at the end of one’s life, memory inverting the roles between parent and child, and eventually setting them free from a painful past.
Streaming in partnership with Aflam Festival.