Event Details
June 2, 2023
6:45 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
Country: Palestine, France, Germany, Qatar, Cyprus
Director: Maha Haj
Length: 108 mins
Synopsis: Waleed develops a close relationship with his neighbor, a small-time crook with an ulterior plot in mind that leads them into a journey of dark encounters.
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Country: Egypt, Lebanon, Germany
Director: Mohammad Shawky Hassan
Length: 63 mins
Synopsis: Pop clichés are twisted with the love between two men who encounter a polyamorous chorus of lovers.
Event Details
June 10, 2023
4:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
Country: Tunisia
Director: Mehdi Hmili
Length: 122 mins
Synopsis: Amel is released from prison after an adulterous affair. In the violent streets of Tunis, she seeks her missing son Moumen, a young football player destroyed by the scandal.
Event Details
June 10, 2023
1:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
Country: Algeria, Morocco, Canada, France
Director: Sara Nacer
Length: 75 mins
Synopsis: The Desert Rocker is an intimate, witty and profound portrait of the extraordinary Hasna El Becharia, a pioneer Gnawa artist.
Event Details
June 11, 2023
4:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
Country: Canada, Lebanon
Director: Omar Mouallem
Length: 103 mins
Synopsis: The meaty saga of a rogue fast- food chain with mysterious origins, a cult following, and a secret pathway to the immigrant dream.
Event Details
June 11, 2023
7:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
Country: United Kingdom, Palestine
Director: Basil Khalil
Length: 90 mins
Synopsis: When a mutant virus known as ARS breaks out in Israel, people are desperate to get out of the country. Among them are Englishman Michael and Israeli Keren, a wealthy couple who find themselves stranded amidst lockdown. Their only hope is to smuggle their way into the Gaza Strip, which, due to the separation wall, is ironically “the safest place in the world.”
Event Details
June 4, 2023
8:00 PM EDT
Innis Quad, 111 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E8
This is a free screening! No tickets required. First come, first served. Please note that the venue can only accommodate 120 people. This is an outdoor screening. Audiences are required to bring their own seating, camping chairs or blankets.
Screenings:
Country: Canada
Director: Marya Zarif, André Kadi
Length: 72 mins
Synopsis: Forced to leave Syria because of the war, Dounia and her grandparents go in search of a new safe haven.
Event Details
June 3, 2023
1:00 PM EDT
1411_D, 1411 Dufferin Street, Unit D, Toronto, ON M6H 4C
Screenings:
Country: Palestine| 2022
Director: Ward Kayyal
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: After recovering from his illness, Hamza returns to the forest to hunt a vicious lion that devours his memory.
Country: Palestine, Germany
Director: Kamal Aljafari
Length: 19 mins
Synopsis: Nothing can be heard anymore; the roar of our plane absorbs every other sound. We are heading straight to the world’s biggest display of soundproof fireworks, and soon we will drop our bombs.
Country: Sudan
Director: Mohamed Fawi
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: As her health deteriorates, a mother watches her son and daughter prepare for her inevitable passing and their new reality.
Country: Lebanon
Director: Sarah Kaskas
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: A year after Beirut’s port explosion, Basma and Mariam reunite in their old bedroom. Surrounded by a view of the port’s remains, the two women attempt to resolve their shared trauma and broken relationship.
Country: Lebanon
Director: Chadi Hazime
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: After Hilton’s door had been closed for many years, the light was finally seen when the director decided to send a public invitation to watch his Big Show inside the ancient art shelter “”Hilton Cinema – Al-Mreijeh District””. As soon as the show began, he was surprised by another realistic show, to explore the past and history of Hilton Cinema, which was the silent witness to many of the harsh circumstances that occurred in this region
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Event Details
June 1, 2023
07:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.
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.
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.
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.
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.
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.
Country: Canada, Lebanon
Director: Chantal Partamian
Length: 9 mins
Synopsis: In the midst of the rubble of a torn building, a reel of film.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
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
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.
Event Details
June 29, 2024
1:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
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.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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?
Event Details
June 21, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
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.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.
Event Details
June 30, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
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.
Event Details
June 28, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
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.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.