SCREENINGS//عروض

TAFF2023: Shorts Programme 2
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
04.23.2018//A Hail Mary
Country: Canada
Director: Faisal Karadsheh
Length: 10 mins
Synopsis: 04.23.2018// A Hail Mary explores the intricacies and unique challenges faced by Karadsheh’s family during their immigration to Toronto, from the widely-publicized death of his grandfather to the personal experiences and intimacies of home.
This film was supported by the Toronto Arab Film x Trinity Square Video Filmmaker Commission.
Simo
Country: Canada
Director: Aziz Zoromba
Length: 23 mins
Synopsis: The usual rivalries and jealousies that exist between the two teenage brothers Simo and Emad take a dangerous turn that may seriously impact the future of their family.
Space Woman//إمرأة فضاء
Country: Lebanon
Director: Hadi Moussally
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: Maha, in her sixties, decides at the dawn of her retirement life to realize her craziest dream in her own way
Olive Planet//كوكب الزيتون
Country: Germany
Director: Shehab Fatoum
Length: 14 mins
Synopsis: Jihad, who dreams of becoming a footballer on Oliver Planet, decides to stand by the uprising against the government and the army, but of course secretly.
Back//العودة
Country: Netherlands, Syrian Arab Republic
Director: Yazan Rabee
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: What it is like to be confronted in the dead of night with mortal fear, trauma and displacement.
TAFF2023: Shorts Programme 3
Event Details
June 1, 2023
07:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Kingdom of Strangers//مملكة الغرباء
Country: Egypt, United States
Director: Randa Ali
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: On the Pacific coast of Los Angeles, Ali and Yaffa struggle to remember the Arab Mediterranean cities they have left behind.
He’s Dead Now//هو ميت ألان
Country: Egypt
Director: Tarek El Sherbeny
Length: 12 mins
Synopsis: Hazem is distraught after his family secrets are made public when his mother decides to expose his late father’s sexual affairs during his funeral rites.
Crocodile Tears//تمساح
Country: Egypt, Saudi Arabia
Director: Khaled Moeit
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: On a road that is overshadowed by its roamers, a Taxi driver takes off with his cousin who wants to deliver money to another city.
TAFF2023: Shorts Programme 4
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Lower Ground//الطابق السفلي
Country: Lebanon, United Kingdom
Director: Firas Itani
Length: 13 mins
Synopsis: When a concierge begins to prepare dinner for his nephew, a resident demands his immediate assistance. The concierge finds himself torn between attending to his employer’s never-ending requests and the boy’s growing hunger. Left unsupervised, the boy sets out to make his dinner, ultimately taking a drastic turn.
The Disaster Cannot Be Contained//كان يمكن أن لا أكون
Country: Netherlands, Lebanon
Director: Diana Al-Halabi
Length: 25 mins
Synopsis: Starting with her obsessive love of ports, filmmaker Diana Al-Halabi narrates her experience on a tugboat in the port of Beirut in 2017.
Killing Bagheera//بطلان
Country: Germany
Director: Muschirf Shekh Zeyn
Length: 13 mins
Synopsis: Alan and Bekes are refugees and want to enter Europe. This simple premise forms the narrative for a claustrophobic and intense drama surrounding friendship, courage, dreams and how the other half life.
Traces//آثار
Country: Canada, Lebanon
Director: Chantal Partamian
Length: 9 mins
Synopsis: In the midst of the rubble of a torn building, a reel of film.
TAFF2024: Opening Night Screenings “Better//باتر” and “First Sky//السماء الأولى”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
Better//باتر
Country: France, Morocco
Director: Kamal Ourahou
Length: 92 mins
Synopsis: Between 2009 and 2011, I filmed and edited Nassim Lachhab’s very first skateboarding videos in Rabat, Morocco. In 2020, after having lived in France and Spain, Nassim became the first Moroccan and African professional skater in history. Ever since then, I kept wondering: What had it been like for Nassim to rise to the forefront of the international skate scene, all the while wrestling with the challenges of immigration? In what way did his groundbreaking trajectory resonate with the current state of Morocco’s skateboarding scene? – Kamal Ourahou
First Sky//السماء الأولى
Country: Egypt
Director: Lena Naassana
Length: 19 mins
Synopsis: A young skater from Alexandria receives a Super 8 camera from his older brother who has recently emigrated. Over the course of a long summer by the sea, he begins to use the camera in the hopes of reconnecting with his brother.
TAFF2024: Screening “À toi Jeddi”
Event Details
June 29, 2024
1:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
À toi Jeddi
Country: Canada
Director: Sara Ben-saud
Length: 61 mins
Synopsis: After discovering the memoirs of her Libyan grandfather, Sara decides to go and discover her paternal origins.
TAFF2024: Screening “All Roads Lead to More”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
All Roads Lead to More
Country: Germany
Director: Afraa Batous
Length: 78 mins
Synopsis: To cope with the daily trauma of a lost home, Syrian filmmaker Afraa Batous is filming her friends as they plan to embark on their first road trip ever.
TAFF2024: Screening “And If Not Now, When?”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
And If Not Now, When?
Country: Belgium, Morocco
Director: Guy De Troyer
Length: 28 mins
Synopsis: This essay documentary makes an intimate journey into the world of Paulette, one of the last remaining Jews in Marrakech who decided to stay and is reflecting on a universal question: where do you feel at home?
TAFF2024: Screening “Goodbye Julia//وداعاً جوليا”
Event Details
June 21, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
Goodbye Julia//وداعاً جوليا
Country: Sudan
Director: Mohamed Kordofani
Length: 116 mins
Synopsis: Wracked by guilt after covering up a murder, Mona — a northern Sudanese retired singer in a tense marriage — tries to make amends by taking in the deceased’s southern Sudanese widow, Julia, and her son, Daniel, into her home.
TAFF2024: Screening “Light upon Light//نور على نور”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Light upon Light//نور على نور
Country: Egypt
Director: Christian Suhr
Length: 78 mins
Synopsis: A philosophical field trip from Cairo, along the Nile and into the desert in search for what light means as a religious concept in post-revolutionary Egypt.
TAFF2024: Screening “Mandoob//مندوب الليل”
Event Details
June 30, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
Mandoob//مندوب الليل
Country: Saudi Arabia
Director: Ali Kalthami
Length: 110 mins
Synopsis: A mentally fragile man working as a night courier gets caught up in an illegal alcohol ring.
TAFF2024: Screening “Six Feet Over//ما فوق الضريح”
Event Details
June 28, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
Six Feet Over//ما فوق الضريح
Country: France, Algeria
Director: Karim Bensalah
Length: 96 mins
Synopsis: Son of a former Algerian diplomat Sofiane lived his entire life to this point abroad. Now a student in Lyon, he is the victim of an administrative decision and is living under the threat of expulsion.
TAFF2024: Screening “Tadur”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Tadur//تدور
Country: Lebanon
Director: Jad Andari
Length: 50 mins
Synopsis: A young farmer on the outskirts of a mountain village wastes away with gangsters and prostitutes who lurk in the forest.
TAFF2024: Screening “Take My Breath//المايين”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Take My Breath//المايين
Country: Tunisia
Director: Nada Mezni Hafaiedh
Length: 95 mins
Synopsis: When Shams’ intersex identity is exposed, the young seamstress’ tranquil life unravels.
TAFF2024: Screening “The Factory”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
The Factory
Country: Syria
Director: Yanal Mansour
Length: 46 mins
Synopsis: A feature documentary film that deals with a group of events experienced by Captain Maher, a firefighter who, through a personal voluntary initiative, enters public schools teaching a subject he called “public safety,” where students are taught a set of ways to survive possible mistakes caused by war or environmental disasters.
TAFF2024: Screening “The Last Queen//الملكة الأخيرة”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
The Last Queen//الملكة الأخيرة
Country: Algeria
Director: Damien Ounouri, Adila Bendimerad
Length: 110 mins
Synopsis: Insipired in the legendary Princess Zaphira, wife of the last King of Algiers Salim Toumi, and his fight to defend her community from pirate Barbarossa.
TAFF2024: Screening “The Old Oak”
Event Details
June 30, 2024
4:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
The Old Oak
Country: 2023
Director: Ken Loach
Length: 113 mins
Synopsis: A pub landlord in a previously thriving mining community struggles to hold onto his pub. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed in the empty houses in the community.
TAFF2024: Screening “The Soil and the Sea//بحر و تراب”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
The Soil and the Sea//بحر و تراب
Country: Lebanon
Director: Daniele Rugo
Length: 74 mins
Synopsis: In Lebanon there are more than 100 untouched mass graves dating back from the Civil War, and thousands of families awaiting a missing relative or at least a bone to bury The Soil and the Sea unveils the violence lying beneath a garden, a school, a cafe, a hotel, and other unremarkable landscapes.
TAFF2024: Screening “The Tedious Tour of M//جولة ميم المملة”
Event Details
June 29, 2024
4:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
The Tedious Tour of M//جولة ميم المملة
Country: Egypt
Director: Hend Bakr
Length: 76 mins
Synopsis: A peanuts street vendor who turned into one of the stars of the modern history of Egyptian literature in the sixties, comes back to his hometown and cocoons for 30 years. He claims that he was doomed to stop writing forever.
TAFF2024: Screening “Valley of Exile//وادي المنفى”
Event Details
June 23, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
Valley of Exile//وادي المنفى
Country: Canada
Director: Anna Fahr
Length: 107 mins
Synopsis: Set in the early years of the Syrian war, Valley of Exile chronicles the journey of Rima and Nour, two sisters who find unexpected refuge in a makeshift settlement in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley after fleeing war-torn Damascus.
TAFF2024: Shorts Programme “(De)Liberation”
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Beneath a Mother’s Feet//تحت أقدام أم
Country: United Kingdom, Morocco
Director: Elias Suhail
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: A single mother in Morocco, trapped in a mundane existence, confronts her dreams and fears, leading to the agonising decision to forsake all she knows, even her children.
What Else Grows On The Palm Of Your Hand?
Country: Belgium, Morocco
Director: Dhiaa Biya
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: The routines of two women fuse together as their similar gestures get repeated over time. Their hands intersect through their shared memory one movement at a time.
A Dog, A Stone
Country: Tunisia
Director: Asma Laajimi
Length: 13 mins
Synopsis: Mariem, a sex worker, tries to reach Dali. Her unrest grows when she fears he will break the promise to give her a double mattress.
On the Sidelines
Country: France
Director: Kahina Ben Amar
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: Amra recently left her family to make her professional football debut. But her grandparents who raised her aren’t young anymore, and she isn’t sure her younger sister is trustworthy. Worried, she comes back to her family for a weekend.