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Welcome to the Tenth Annual Arab Film Festival The Arab Film Festival will celebrate the 10th anniversary with more than 40 films representing more than 12 countries. With a combination of feature-length fiction, documentaries and short films, the 2006 festival will showcase a broad range of themes such as the war in Iraq, Arab youth in French inner cities and the World Cup qualification attempt of the Palestinian national soccer team. With interest in the Arab world at an all-time high, we are pleased to provide a unique glimpse into Arab culture, art and the human experience. Acclaimed fiction films include Cannes award winner This year's opening night film is Zozo, a Swedish-Lebanese film chronicling the coming of age of a Lebanese orphan in Sweden. With the current war in Lebanon, there will most likely be more displaced Lebanese orphans. In recent years, Algerian fiction film has experienced a renaissance. This year's Algerian offerings include the film Bled Number One, winner of the Youth Award at the Cannes film festival, the poetic Le Thé d'Ania and the comedy Once Upon a Time in the Wadi. Egyptian films include the spellbinding first night opener, Kiss Me Not on the Eyes and Malek wa Ketaba. Ahlaam represents the first feature-length film from Iraq since the U.S. invasion and centers on the experiences of a young Iraqi woman spanning the Ba'ath regime through post-Saddam Iraq. The wildly popular Lebanese musical comedy, Bosta, the fast-paced and complex thriller Heaven's Doors from Morocco and a series of films comprising a Syrian retrospective will also be shown. Multi-cultural films on tap include Seeds of Doubt about an Algerian-German couple with visiting filmmaker Samir Nasr, Zozo, the visually stunning Bab'Aziz depicting a young girl and her dervish grandfather, and Wesh Wesh, What's Going On? which explores the lives of young second-generation Arabs in French inner cities. Hard-hitting documentaries depict Arab life and culture This year's documentary line-up includes the award-winning Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority. Directed by Libyans Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish, this Bay-Area premiere explores Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. The Omeish brothers will participate in post-screening Q&A's and media interviews. The Blood of My Brother, another Bay Area premier, tells the story of the Iraq war from the perspective of a family reacting to the death of its eldest son, a photographer who is shot by an American patrol while guarding an ancient mosque. Goal Dreams depicts the attempts of the Palestinian national soccer team to qualify for the World Cup. More than just entertainment The Arab Film Festival features a variety of additional events and community outreach efforts. These include the Festival in the Schools, in which select films will be shown and discussed with hundreds of students at San Francisco Bay Area schools, as well as panel discussions with directors and actors from select movies. |
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