SCREENINGS//عروض

TAFF2021: Screening “Abou Leila//أبو ليلى”
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screening:
Abou Leila//أبو ليلى
Country: Algeria
Director: Amin Sidi-Boumedine
Length: 135 mins
Synopsis: Algeria, 1994. With Civil War raging for years in the north of the country, each day continues to bring its share of death and horror. Police officers S. and Lotfi, two childhood friends, travel through the desert looking for Abou Leila, a dangerous terrorist on the run. In the immensity of the Sahara, their quest seems absurd, but Lofti has only one priority: to keep S. as far from the capital as possible, knowing his friend is too fragile to face more bloodshed. But the deeper they get into the desert, the more they are confronted with their own trauma and violence.
Co-presented with Arab Community Centre of Toronto and Canadian Arab Institute
TAFF2021: Screening “Sugar Cage//قفص السكر”
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Sugar Cage//قفص السكر
Country: Syria
Director: Zeina Qahwaji
Length: 60 mins
Synopsis: In an attempt to record a standstill time, the filmmaker examines her intimate life with her aging parents over the course of 8 years since the beginning of war in Syria. The film is questioning a life style, and scenes of isolation and stagnancy that overshadow life in Syria. In parallel, it is observing an intimate, human affection that’s maybe rooted deeper than we may imagine.
Co-presented with Al Markaz.
TAFF2021: Screening “The Unknown Saint//سيد المجهول” + “The Tomb//الضريح”
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
The Unknown Saint//سيد المجهول
Country: Morocco
Director: Alaa Eddine Aljem
Length: 126 mins
Synopsis: Amine steals a big bag of money and escapes into the hills with the police hot on his trail. Before he is arrested, he digs a grave to bury the cash and disguises it as a modest tomb. Years later, Amine is released from prison and sets off to find his money. In the meantime, a religious shrine has been built directly over the place he buried his cash. The mausoleum honours an unknown saint from the region whose tomb was recently discovered. Down the hill from the resting place of the “The Unknown Saint”, a new village subsists on the pilgrims who travel from far and wide to visit the mausoleum. Amine settles into the village and begins plotting a way in. But with the loot now hidden in a holy place, retrieving it suddenly becomes much more complicated.
The Tomb//الضريح
Country: Sudan
Director: Eltayeb Mahdi
Length: 17 mins
Synopsis: The Tomb tells the story of a man who claims to be able to heal people.
Co-presented with Association Marocaine de Toronto.
TAFF2021: Shorts Film Collection (Available Globally)
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Pacific
Country: Belgium, Lebanon
Director: Angie Obeid
Length: 23 mins
Synopsis: Whenever I walk through the dark reddish hallways to reach my apartment, whenever I would look out of my windows and dive into that expended view of the city of Brussels, unusual feelings would emerge. Until the day I read an article about my building PACIFIC, entitled “the suicide tower”.
Foam (Écume)
Country: Canada
Director: Omar Elhamy
Length: 28 mins
Synopsis: The car repair shop is their second home and their colleagues are like family. Everyone has their quirks and is accepted for the way they are. But then comes the bad news: they are soon to be squeezed out by a more lucrative new building project. How should they respond? How can they support each other? A buddy film about life’s little and larger transformations, about social class and solidarity, captured in sensitively telling images.
Clench My Fists
Country: United States
Director: Sarah Trad
Length: 6 mins
Synopsis: A found-footage collage video that explores the process of growing up in an Arab family deeply affected by death and grief. “Clench My Fists” is part of a series of work focusing on not only decolonizing Imperialist Western understandings of the Middle East but to also show the beauty of the artist’s heritage, outside the context of her family.
The Girls Who Burned The Night//من يحرقن الليل
Country: Saudi Arabia
Director: Sara Mesfer
Length: 24 mins
Synopsis: In an engagement night, a denied request pushes two sisters to their edge. Salsabel, a 13 years old Saudi girl who fights to go to the grocery shop in a city where it’s socially unacceptable experiences hardship in her relationship with her older sister Wasan who the fear of the night’s darkness and refuses to go. Later that day, the two sisters find a way to their desires by burning the night.
And The Night Will Carry Us
Country: Tunisia
Director: Koudhai Amine
Length: 11 mins
Synopsis: A dog walks at night.
One Of Us Left The Photo//أحدنا غادر الصورة
Country: Syria
Director: Malas Twins
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: A Syrian refugee lives in France with his French woman. His twin brother, pro the Syrian regime, arrives unexpectedly from Syria and lives with them in the same house.
Aziza
Country: Syria, Lebanon
Director: Soudade Kaadan
Length: 13 mins
Synopsis: Ayman, Syrian refugee in Lebanon, teaching his wife how to drive his car, the only thing left for him from his country. The lesson takes a wrong turn into madness and nostalgia.
TAFF2021: Shorts Programme 1
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Sukar//سُكَّر
Country: Morocco
Director: Illias El Faris
Length: 11 mins
Synopsis: Casablanca’s beach, Morocco. Teenager’s desire for each other is growing discreetly. Adults and children oversee. A fight creates a diversion.
Mutts (Clebs)//كلب
Country: Canada, Morocco
Director: Halima Ouardiri
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: The animals’ brown, beige, white and black coats blend into the ochre earth and sunbaked walls. After the calm of rest hour, a deafening cacophony breaks out at feeding time, as the dogs bark excitedly. In a stray-dog refuge in Agadir, Morocco, more than 750 animals find help and protection while awaiting adoption. Each day is the same as the last, the only excitement provided by mealtime. Empathetic and alert to subtleties of light and texture, Halima Ouardiri observes the rhythm of the animals’ lives, their suspended existence paralleling the far more tragic waiting endured by millions of human beings in search of a new home.
Foam (Écume)
Country: Canada
Director: Omar Elhamy
Length: 28 mins
Synopsis: The car repair shop is their second home and their colleagues are like family. Everyone has their quirks and is accepted for the way they are. But then comes the bad news: they are soon to be squeezed out by a more lucrative new building project. How should they respond? How can they support each other? A buddy film about life’s little and larger transformations, about social class and solidarity, captured in sensitively telling images.
And The Night Will Carry Us
Country: Tunisia
Director: Koudhai Amine
Length: 11 mins
Synopsis: A dog walks at night.
Jardins Paradise
Country: Canada
Director: Yza Nouiga
Length: 6 mins
Synopsis: Garden of Eden, jardin à la française, English, Zen, Bahai, Arab-Islamic: Gardens reflect history, culture and heritage. They are some of the rare places where intimacy, gatherings, fun and religion coexist. And, what if Paradise was nothing more than a green parking lot designed to suit each and everyone’s own preferences?
Co-presented by:
TAFF2021: Shorts Programme 2
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Ain’t No Time For Women//مفماش وقت للنساء
Country: Canada
Director: Sarra El Abed
Length: 19 mins
Synopsis: Tunis, November 2019. A group of women is gathered at Saïda’s, the hairdresser, on the eve of the presidential election. The salon is transformed into a town square, mirroring the internal turmoil of the country. In this female sanctuary, we get an intimate look at the county’s teenage democracy.
Pacific
Country: Belgium, Lebanon
Director: Angie Obeid
Length: 23 mins
Synopsis: Whenever I walk through the dark reddish hallways to reach my apartment, whenever I would look out of my windows and dive into that expended view of the city of Brussels, unusual feelings would emerge. Until the day I read an article about my building PACIFIC, entitled “the suicide tower”.
Storm Child
Country: Canada
Director: Ines Guennaoui
Length: 12 mins
Synopsis: Storm Child is a nightmarish incursion in the tormented mind of a four year old child. Yasmine and her family are Algerian refugees who just arrived in Québec during the infamous 1998 ice storm.
One Of Us Left The Photo//أحدنا غادر الصورة
Country: Syria
Director: Malas Twins
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: A Syrian refugee lives in France with his French woman. His twin brother, pro the Syrian regime, arrives unexpectedly from Syria and lives with them in the same house.
Co-presented by:
TAFF2021: Shorts Programme 3
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Al-Sit//الست
Country: Sudan, Qatar
Director: Suzannah Mirghani
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, 15-year-old Nafisa has a crush on Babiker, but her parents have arranged her marriage to Nadir, a young Sudanese businessman living abroad. Nafisa’s grandmother Al-Sit, the powerful village matriarch, has her own plans for Nafisa’s future. But can Nafisa choose for herself?
The Girls Who Burned The Night//من يحرقن الليل
Country: Saudi Arabia
Director: Sara Mesfer
Length: 24 mins
Synopsis: In an engagement night, a denied request pushes two sisters to their edge. Salsabel, a 13 years old Saudi girl who fights to go to the grocery shop in a city where it’s socially unacceptable experiences hardship in her relationship with her older sister Wasan who the fear of the night’s darkness and refuses to go. Later that day, the two sisters find a way to their desires by burning the night.
Aziza//عزيزة
Country: Syria, Lebanon
Director: Soudade Kaadan
Length: 13 mins
Synopsis: Ayman, Syrian refugee in Lebanon, teaching his wife how to drive his car, the only thing left for him from his country. The lesson takes a wrong turn into madness and nostalgia.
Nour//نور
Country: Tunisia
Director: Rim Nakhli
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: Nour and Adem set off to look for their father, whom they haven’t seen for a long time. The two of them cross the city to the rendez-vous, but their father fails to show up.
Co-presented by:
TAFF2021: Shorts Programme 4
Event Details
May 27, 2021
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
So We Live//لنا نعيش
Country: Belgium
Director: Rand Abou Fakher
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: A family living in a war torn country spends what seems to be a normal evening together. Their conversations shift between casual matters of daily life and survival. This ambiguous situation highlights the aches of how we take time for granted and live life.
The Departure
Country: France, Morocco
Director: Said Hamich
Length: 25 mins
Synopsis: Morocco, 2004. The summer of Adil, 11 years old, is upset by the visit of his father and his big brother, who leave for France in just a few days …
Clench My Fists
Country: United States
Director: Sarah Trad
Length: 6 mins
Synopsis: A found-footage collage video that explores the process of growing up in an Arab family deeply affected by death and grief. “Clench My Fists” is part of a series of work focusing on not only decolonizing Imperialist Western understandings of the Middle East but to also show the beauty of the artist’s heritage, outside the context of her family.
I’m Afraid To Forget Your Face//ستاشر
Country: Egypt, France, Qatar, Belgium
Director: Sameh Alaa
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: After being separated for 82 days, Adam travels down a rough road to be reunited with the one he loves, whatever it takes.
Co-presented with Arab Community Centre of Toronto and Canadian Arab Institute.
TAFF2022: “Cinema, Oblivion, & Rememoration” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Dajla: Cinema and Oblivion
Country: Spain
Director: Arturo Dueñas
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: The rocky desert in southwestern Algeria is the temporary home of about 150,000 refugees from Western Sahara. Goats grazing or the opening of a beauty salon are among the many scenes of everyday life of people who are eagerly awaiting the beginning of the film festival. The observational documentary captures the unwavering love of film in a place that the world has forgotten.
Cine-Ruins
Country: Lebanon
Director: Oscar Debs
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: A family rumor about an Egypt-based star’s kinship to the Debs family in El-Mina, Tripoli, led to revisiting the history of a specific deserted cinema theatre there and the family of its manager.
Searching for Amal//البحث عن أمل
Country: Egypt
Director: Shehab Abd Al-hafez
Length: 30 mins
Synopsis: A grandson opens up old family photos to realize that there was always a picture of a girl hanging on the wall behind them, and now he sets upon a path of discovery.
Joe Buffalo
Country: Canada
Director: Amar Chebib
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: Joe Buffalo, an Indigenous skateboard legend and Indian Residential School survivor, must face his inner demons to realize his dream of turning pro.
TAFF2022: “Déraciné” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Mariam//مريم
Country: Palestine
Director: Dana Durr
Length: 5 mins
Synopsis: After losing her precious paradise, Mariam undergoes a journey through her roots and history to find culture and continuity.
Nur El Qulub//نورالقلوب
Country: Canada
Director: Sawsan Alsaraf
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: Nur Al Qulub is an exploration of the spiritual dimension of shadow and light. Drawing from the director’s experiences as the end-of-life support person for many near and dear people in her life, this project seeks to ask questions about spiritual truth, transitions, and the unknown. Dwelling on the threshold of spaces of darkness leading to the light, shadow work and discomfort, and the material and the spiritual, Nur Al Qulub references AlSaraf’s deepest realizations around the meaning of life – and death.
The Song of Sin//نشيد الخطيئة
Country: France
Director: Khalid Maadour
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: The Song of Sin retraces the story of Sufunis and Youba, couple of Imediazens, a tribe of the rif located in the North East of Morocco. Poets and musicians, heirs to an ancestral art, they are ostracized by a society that is looking for itself. Much more than a love story, the story of a people, is played out on these windswept highlands, between resignation and combat.
Don’t Forget The Water//لا تنسى التسمية
Country: Canada
Director: Christina Hajjar
Length: 5 mins
Synopsis: A phone conversation sets the diasporic table as a disembodied figure prepares Qahwah Arabi / Arabic Coffee. Here, the contradictions inherent in Google Translate’s instant camera feature are made visible through glitched mistranslations. Using these flaws as a prompt, the communication between a mother and a daughter considers ambiguity as a source of embodied knowledge.
CloseCall
Country: Egypt, United States
Director: Amr El-Bayoumi, Matt Tsymbal
Length: 9 mins
Synopsis: An Egyptian-American businessman arrives in New York City to salvage a transaction that has his career hanging in the balance. Will a detour to the 9/11 Memorial jeopardize the deal?
Co-presented with Al Markaz.
TAFF2022: “Objects of Affection” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
A Toi
Country: Lebanon
Director: Nour Azar Chami
Length: 11 mins
Synopsis: A 12 year old boy develops a spiritual relationship with his dead grandpa.
Tala’Vision//تالافيزيون
Country: Germany, Jordan
Director: Murad Abu Eisheh
Length: 27 mins
Synopsis: Trapped in a war ridden reality, with the hope of one day playing in the neighborhood’s football field, 8 year old Tala finds solace and freedom in a forbidden television. However, the secret TV becomes a matter of life and death.
Aïcha’s Dress//روبة عيشة
Country: Tunisia
Director: Mouhamed Saïed
Length: 28 mins
Synopsis: Saber, a young 14-year-old who lives in precariousness, manages as best he can to provide for himself and his sick mother Aïcha.
Son Of The Streets
Country: Palestine
Director: Mohammed Almughanni
Length: 33 mins
Synopsis: The film depicts the daily life of Khodor, a 13-year-old orphan whose relatives struggle to get him an ID card that proves his existence and gives him the right to education, health care and freedom of movement outside the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut, Lebanon. During the process, long hidden family secrets are revealed.
Co-presented with Toronto Palestine Film Festival
TAFF2022: “Off-Season Tourists” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Sandjak//سنجق
Country: Lebanon
Director: Chantal Partamian
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: Navigating three types of images, shot in three different periods, the film explores the poetics of haunting through compositions of images that create an entanglement between the past and the present. An intimate but detached voice, a little stoic even, speaking of countless losses. The repeated affirmation of belonging to a place that is no longer.
Galb’Echaouf//قلب الشوف
Country: Morocco
Director: Abdessamad El Montassir
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: While investigating on an event that profoundly changed the landscape of the Occidental Sahara, the filmmaker was faced with a silent entourage and parents who are haunted by this harsh socio-political history. He consequently focuses his attention on the landscape and plants in order to find elements that could answer and help to reconstruct this amnesia.
The Way Back//طريق العودة
Country: Libya
Director: Malek Mohamed Elmaghrebi
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: Tawergha is a village in the middle of northern Libya, during the events of the Libyan revolution on February 17, 2011, all those living in Tawergha were expelled until the announcement of reconciliation between the conflicting parties after seven years, but it seems that only declaring reconciliation is not enough until the population returns to settle again in Tawergha, and through the heroes of the story, Khairy, who decided to live in Tawergha again, and Salem, who is still not convinced to return.
Off-Season Tourists
Country: Tunisia
Director: Maher Hasnaoui
Length: 30 mins
Synopsis: In 2010, after the state crisis in Ivory Coast, Hervé decides to leave his country. Once he arrives in Tunisia, he must face a reality he never imagined and dreaming of a better life becomes his daily challenge.
Warsha//ورشة
Country: Lebanon
Director: Dania Bdeir
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: A Syrian migrant working as a crane operator in Beirut volunteers to cover a shift on one of the most dangerous cranes, where he is able to find his freedom.
TAFF2022: “Strange Encounters” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Strangers After Midnight
Country: Syria
Director: Kinda Youssef
Length: 22 mins
Synopsis: Moments that unfolded late one night in the life of four Syrian refugees in Paris.
Roadblock//حاجز
Country: France, Lebanon
Director: Dahlia Nemlich
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: Beirut 2019 – During the Revolution. On her way back from a protest, Farah, a young Lebanese woman and her French – Lebanese boyfriend, Anthony, are stopped at a roadblock held by two armed militiamen who have a bone to pick with Farah.
Nightfall//الشفق
Country: France
Director: Roméo De Melo Martins
Length: 26 mins
Synopsis: On the 13th of July 2011, during a demonstration against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, the Syrian authorities arrest several intellectuals and artists. Among them, Ali Abou Georges, theater actor. After a night of interrogation, he is taken to the office of General Omar, the head of the Syrian intelligence service.
The Laughing Woo Woo
Country: United States
Director: Amir Youssef
Length: 17 mins
Synopsis: A proof-of-concept short film about Simsim – a lonesome Egyptian asylee in San Francisco with a wooingly contagious laugh, is battling his bizarre misfortunes to follow immigration procedures, and his only hope is his greedy lawyer Dale.
5:1
Country: Canada
Director: Sara Ben-Saud
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: Filmmaker Ben-Saud takes us into her family home, where she was confined with her parents and adult brother and sister during the early months of the lockdown, to experience the sometimes funny and sometimes challenging realities of pandemic coexistence.”
Co-presented with Canadian Arab Institute
TAFF2022: “Strange Encounters” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 29, 2022
2:30 pm EDT
Paradise Theatre, 1006 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, M6H 1M2
Screenings:
Strangers After Midnight
Country: Syria
Director: Kinda Youssef
Length: 22 mins
Synopsis: Moments that unfolded late one night in the life of four Syrian refugees in Paris.
Roadblock//حاجز
Country: France, Lebanon
Director: Dahlia Nemlich
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: Beirut 2019 – During the Revolution. On her way back from a protest, Farah, a young Lebanese woman and her French – Lebanese boyfriend, Anthony, are stopped at a roadblock held by two armed militiamen who have a bone to pick with Farah.
Nightfall//الشفق
Country: France
Director: Roméo De Melo Martins
Length: 26 mins
Synopsis: On the 13th of July 2011, during a demonstration against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, the Syrian authorities arrest several intellectuals and artists. Among them, Ali Abou Georges, theater actor. After a night of interrogation, he is taken to the office of General Omar, the head of the Syrian intelligence service.
The Laughing Woo Woo
Country: United States
Director: Amir Youssef
Length: 17 mins
Synopsis: A proof-of-concept short film about Simsim – a lonesome Egyptian asylee in San Francisco with a wooingly contagious laugh, is battling his bizarre misfortunes to follow immigration procedures, and his only hope is his greedy lawyer Dale.
5:1
Country: Canada
Director: Sara Ben-Saud
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: Filmmaker Ben-Saud takes us into her family home, where she was confined with her parents and adult brother and sister during the early months of the lockdown, to experience the sometimes funny and sometimes challenging realities of pandemic coexistence.”
TAFF2022: “With Strings Attached” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Fighters
Country: France
Director: Malika Hadjal
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: Emma, a woman of 35 years old, beaten by her abusive husband, escapes her house during the night with her 5 years old daughter, CHLOE.
Osha//عوشة
Country: United Arab Emirates
Director: Rasha Amer
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: This short documentary follows a mother (Aysha) and daughter (Osha) as they travel through the desert hunting with falcons, the traditional Emirati method that has been passed down through the generations.
Ana Wa Enti (Me and You)//أنا و أنت
Country: United States
Director: Alexandra Muhawi-Ho
Length: 17 mins
Synopsis: 33-year-old Amira struggles to find her place in between her Arab and American identities while living with and navigating her relationship with her culturally traditional, yet loving mother.
Tender Threads//حبال المودة
Country: Morocco
Director: Ouijdane Khallid
Length: 24 mins
Synopsis: The routine of daily life between Radia and her mother generates an awful discomfort and becomes a major obstacle to Radia’s emotional future and her relationship with her mother. This monotony therefore cause an unexpected cleavage.
With Strings Attached
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Alla Abdunabi
Length: 3 mins
Synopsis: The importance of women in this world is often neglected. This narrative stop-motion film explores the complexities of a relationship with a mother. The emphasis of a woman’s presence on a child’s growth is hidden between the lines of this short film. However, the connection must come to an end; after all, there are always strings attached.
Incurable
Country: Iran
Director: Bahare Nikjoo
Length: 17 mins
Synopsis: In a southern region of Iran, a girl has been lost. Her brother and her sister in law are looking for her, but there is a mystery behind this.
Co-presented with MENA Film Festival
TAFF2022: “Women on the Verge” Shorts Programme
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT
Paradise Theatre, 1006 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M6H 1M2
Screenings:
Virtual Voice
Country: Sudan
Director: Suzannah Mirghani
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: This is a satirical review of our times. Suzi doll is an ego-warrior. My online avatar, marching to the algorithms of social media. She is lit by temporary outrage. A trending indignation. A passion that is fashion. A politics of the popular. Her activism is abstract. Her help is hypothetical. We know many girls like Suzi, and many times we are her: vacuous virtual voices, echoing injustices.
Alia
Country: France
Director: Zahra Berrada
Length: 26 mins
Synopsis: Ali, a young Moroccan emigrant, is torn between the conservative environment of his family and his passion for the cabaret where he cross-dresses at night to become Alia.
Blooming Dalia
Country: France
Director: Holy Fatma
Length: 24 mins
Synopsis: Dalia (25), a french ex-reality TV starlet, is at her lowest point. Depressed and overweight, she tries to reconnect with her estranged mother, who still refuses to talk to her because of her seedy tabloid fodder past. Deeply hurt, Dalia accepts to be part of a new TV show booked by Coco, her agent, on the one condition that she loses weight. But as Coco strives to make her the IT-girl she once was, Dalia’s repressed Algerian origins resurface unexpectedly.
J’ai Le Cafard//بنت وردان
Country: Kuwait
Director: Maysaa Almumin
Length: 14 mins
Synopsis: A woman in a downhearted mood struggles to keep up appearances in front of her chirpy and driven office colleagues. An encounter with a dying cockroach in the office toilet develops into an absurd friendship, becoming the comforting companionship she needs until she realizes its destructive effects on her life.
An Evening with Laila//سهرة مع ليلى
Country: Kuwait
Director: Haya Alghanim
Length: 10 mins
Synopsis: A short documentary about the life and true story of Laila Abdulaziz, a pioneer of music in the Arabian Gulf and staple of Kuwaiti history who had a vision for the future that no one was ready for, not even herself.
Conversations with an Actress
Country: Lebanon
Director: Estephan Khattar
Length: 13 mins
Synopsis: Throughout two consecutive summers, a director was documenting his conversations with an actress about Beirut, love, failure, and immigration without her knowing that her private chats and voice notes have been transformed into a film.
Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow//آخر أيّام رجل الغَد
Country: Lebanon, Germany
Director: Fadi Baki
Length: 23 mins
Synopsis: A young filmmaker investigates the legend of Manivelle, an automaton gifted to Lebanon in 1945 that still haunts an abandoned mansion in Beirut. After being coaxed back out into the limelight, the people who knew him come forward to speak their mind, and the myth that Manivelle has constructed around himself begins to unravel. A science-fiction mockumentary out of Lebanon, Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow is a funny, sad and weird look at the life of the Middle East’s first and only living robot and the stories you won’t find in your history books.
Co-presented with Breakthroughs Film Festival
TAFF2022: Canadian Short Film Screening + Canadian Filmmakers Roundtable
Event Details
May 29, 2022
12:00 pm EDT
Paradise Theatre, 1006 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, M6H 1M2

Join us for a screening of Canadian short films followed by a panel discussion around opportunities and challenges making films in Canada and beyond.
Screenings:
Brown Bread & Apricots
Country: Jordan, Canada
Director: Serene Husni
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: In the absence of his parents, an unruly teenager is presented with a crucial test of character devised by his eldest sister. Instead of being punished for skipping school, he is entrusted with managing the family allowance for two weeks. To feed his siblings, he resorts to something he knew in his heart: in a Palestinian house, the pantry is never bare. Borrowing from classic elements of Palestinian storytelling—namely repetition, trickery, and an obsession with food—Brown Bread & Apricots is a story about a Palestinian family in exile.
Visions of Basra
Country: Canada
Director: Noor Gatih
Length: 5 mins
Synopsis: Visions of Basra explores my mother’s fragmented memories of her homeland by exploring her photographs, colours and words. Each moving visual appears to be imperfect or out of focus the more detailed her recollections become.
Nur El Qulub//نورالقلوب
Country: Canada
Director: Sawsan Alsaraf
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: Nur Al Qulub is an exploration of the spiritual dimension of shadow and light. Drawing from the director’s experiences as the end-of-life support person for many near and dear people in her life, this project seeks to ask questions about spiritual truth, transitions, and the unknown. Dwelling on the threshold of spaces of darkness leading to the light, shadow work and discomfort, and the material and the spiritual, Nur Al Qulub references AlSaraf’s deepest realizations around the meaning of life – and death.
Don’t Forget The Water
Country: Canada
Director: Christina Hajjar
Length: 5 mins
Synopsis: A phone conversation sets the diasporic table as a disembodied figure prepares Qahwah Arabi / Arabic Coffee. Here, the contradictions inherent in Google Translate’s instant camera feature are made visible through glitched mistranslations. Using these flaws as a prompt, the communication between a mother and a daughter considers ambiguity as a source of embodied knowledge.
Festina Lente
Country: Canada
Director: Baya Medhaffar
Length: 21 mins
Synopsis: Combining two contradictory terms in a single phrase is called an oxymoron. Circumventing the obvious, shaking up the logic, proceeding in gusts, claiming the impossible, such is the method that Baya Medhaffar has chosen and, adopting an ancient motto, she makes it clear right from the title: “Make haste slowly”. There are several explanations for this speed proclaimed yet slowed all at once. Her film is mostly made of edited, assembled images from other films; thus, all the emergencies from other works reach a climax here, but as they overlap, they also call for their patient and detailed examination. The dishevelled editing is combined to a superimposition technique that makes scales collide, that associate separated figures and backgrounds, and that ties together in the same frame seemingly unrelated dynamics and lines of forces.
Panel:
Canadian Filmmakers Roundtable
Through this discussion, filmmakers will reflect on their creative journeys, opportunities and challenges making films in Canada and beyond.

Moderator:
Nashwa Lina Khan, Community Educator, Facilitator, and Researcher

Nashwa Lina Khan is a community educator, facilitator, and researcher. She is also a writer and poet and occasionally dabbles in installation and archive that uses narrative methodologies. She holds a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University with areas of concentration focused on narrative methodologies, community and public health, refugee, and forced migration studies and is currently a PhD student at York University in Environment and Urban Change. Her work has been published in a variety of places including Vice, Rewire, This Magazine, and The New York Times. She is the host and producer of two podcasts, Muslim Rumspringa and Habibti Please.
Speakers:
Sawsan Al Saraf, Filmmaker

Sawsan AlSaraf (Canadian, b. Iraq) is a visual and multimedia artist who lives and works in Montreal, Canada, AlSaraf has moved between the Middle East and North America since 1977. In her work, she draws her references from her life experiences as an expatriate Iraqi woman. She holds a BFA in Studio Arts rom Concordia University in Montreal, Canada and an MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Noor Gatih, Filmmaker

Noor Gatih is an Iraqi filmmaker and photographer based in Toronto. Her practice explores gender and generational patterns within family archives, film, and photography, and her work has been exhibited at Collusion Books, Gallery 44, Wave Art Collective and Gallery 1265. Recently, she was selected for a 2021 mentorship opportunity at Made In Her Image (hosted by Panavision), an organization that provides training and resources for women of colour pursuing a career in film production.
Christina Hajjar, Filmmaker

Christina Hajjar is a Lebanese artist, writer, and cultural worker based in Winnipeg on Treaty 1 Territory. Her practice considers intergenerational inheritance, domesticity, and place through diaspora, body archives, and cultural iconography. As a queer femme and first-generation subject, she is invested in the poetics of process, translation, and collaborative labour. Her work involves photography, film, performance, installation, publishing, and curation.

Hajjar was a recipient of the 2020 PLATFORM Photography Award and received an honourable mention for the 2021 Emerging Digital Artists Award. Her film Don’t Forget the Water won the Jury Award and the Audience Choice Award for Best Manitoba Short Film at Gimli Film Festival. Hajjar curates the SWANA Film Festival, presenting South West Asian and North African short films from around the world.

Hajjar is a Managing Editor of Carnation Zine (publishing art and writing on diaspora and displacement) and qumra journal (publishing reflections on world cinema). She is senior editor of Herizons (Canada’s foremost feminist magazine). She is the creator of Diaspora Daughter, Diaspora Dyke zine, which won Best Artzine at the Broken Pencil Zine Awards. Her writing has appeared in BlackFlash Magazine, C Magazine, The Uniter, CV2, Prairie Fire, and PaperWait.
Serene Husni, Filmmaker

Serene Husni is a documentarian, mentor, and Arabic-English translator. She holds an MFA in Documentary Media awarded with distinction from the Toronto Metropolitan University, and her directorial debut, “Zinco” (2013) won the “Audience Award for Best Short Documentary” from the Franco-Arab Film Festival. Her short, “Brown Bread & Apricots” (2021) won the Qayqub Award for “Best Canadian Short Film” from the Toronto Arab Film Festival. She is a co-writer and co-editor of the feature documentary “Eulogy for The Dead Sea” (2022), directed by Polina Teif, which traces the environmental impacts of settler colonialism on the disappearing body of water and the communities that live around it. She is currently in post production on her first feature documentary, a city symphony in four movements, titled “Jenin & the Colony”.
TAFF2022: Screening “A Second Life//ڨدحة”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
A Second Life//ڨدحة
Country: Tunisia
Director: Aniss Lassoued
Length: 92 mins
Synopsis: Gadeha (12) happens one day to be the victim of a car accident. He undergoes surgery. Penniless, his mother, Borkana, is helped by Malika and Moez, a benevolent couple that offers to pay for the hospital fees and provides the destitute family with a roof. Gadeha meets Oussama, Malika and Moez’s child (11) who is recovering from a kidney transplant. A strong friendship is made between the two boys. But Gadeha finds out haphazardly the secret of his family’s new standard of living. He is devastated.
TAFF2022: Screening “Abu Saddam//أبو صدام”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Abu Saddam//أبو صدام
Country: Egypt
Director: Nadine Khan
Length: 89 mins
Synopsis: Experienced truck driver Abu Saddam gets a transportation mission on the North Coast road after he stopped working for years. He decides that he wants to complete his mission perfectly to complement his working reputation, but as he faces a small situation on the road things start to get out of control.
Co-presented with Egypt Migrations
TAFF2022: Screening “Abu Saddam//أبو صدام”
Event Details
May 29, 2022
5:00 pm EDT
Paradise Theatre, 1006 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, M6H 1M2
Screenings:
Abu Saddam//أبو صدام
Country: Egypt
Director: Nadine Khan
Length: 89 mins
Synopsis: Experienced truck driver Abu Saddam gets a transportation mission on the North Coast road after he stopped working for years. He decides that he wants to complete his mission perfectly to complement his working reputation, but as he faces a small situation on the road things start to get out of control.
Co-presented with Egypt Migrations