Event Details
June 23, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
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.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Event Details
June 27, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
Country: Bahrain
Director: Hashim Sharaf
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: A young man tries to escalate a horse up the narrow stairs of the building to live with him in his apartment, but the building residents object to his path.
Country: Morocco, Italy
Director: Yassine El Idrissi
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: Said, a 13 year old boy in the old Medina of Rabat, has a side job collecting empty beer bottles to buy food for a dog he is hiding. Said finds keeping the dog he rescued conflicting with his family, friends, and religious tradition.
Country: Morocco
Director: Walid Messnaoui
Length: 22 mins
Synopsis: Two young thieves find a sealed jewelry box that becomes the envy of rival gangs.
Country: Canada
Director: Rame Ibrahim
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: Two immigrant parents are invited to talk about their journey from their home countries.
Country: Germany
Director: Alshafee Abby
Length: 22 mins
Synopsis: A young refugee struggles with learning the German language while being existentially at the mercy of the bureaucratic system.
Event Details
June 22, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Screenings:
Country: Tunisia
Director: Houcem Slouli
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: In a conformist society, Ahmed and Salma, marry for convenience to pursue their passions with secret lovers.
Country: Canada
Director: Teyama Alkamli
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: Tara, a queer Palestinian woman in her late 20s, attempts to suppress her internal emotional turbulence during a phone call with her best friend Sarab, with whom she is in love.
Country: Canada
Director: Hassib Hani
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: Hadi finds himself an unexpected guest at Adam’s engagement party decades since they last spoke, and at last come face-to-face with the events that tore them apart.
Country: Jordan
Director: Faris Alrjoob
Length: 21 mins
Synopsis: Wandering through desolate bars, hotels, and offices, Ida attempts to feel Ismail’s presence one last time and to say goodbye.
Country: Saudi Arabia, Canada
Director: Maha Al-Saati
Length: 17 mins
Synopsis: Set in 1987, a young black Saudi man attempts to impress a girl by mimicking the music video of Crown, an iconic singer from that time.
Country: Egypt
Director: Amr Salama
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: A struggling family is attempting to deal with the consequences of a horrible catastrophe.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Country: Germany
Director: Alshafee Abby
Length: 22 mins
Synopsis: A young refugee struggles with learning the German language while being existentially at the mercy of the bureaucratic system.
Country: Canada
Director: Karel Malkoun
Length: 23 mins
Synopsis: Miles away, I watch the slow erasing of my home. Scattered between two places, I am no longer anywhere.
Country: Egypt
Director: Amir El-Shenawy
Length: 17 mins
Synopsis: A 17-year-old Eritrean boy fled the war in his country to settle in Egypt, where he dreams to overcome the barriers and get accepted into the Egyptian society so he could get a chance to become a promising professional football player and help his family back home. The documentary tells a simple story that sheds light on the status of African migrants and refugees in Egypt today.
Country: Egypt, United States
Director: Yasmin Moll
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis: A young girl flies back in time to her drowned homeland, guided by the songs and stories of her community
Country: Oman
Director: Haitham Sulaiman
Length: 29 mins
Synopsis: Water Religion is a short narrative film tells the story of Issa, a blind tanager who has dream to sail the sea looking after his lost father fisherman against all odds.
Event Details
June 20, 2024
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Country: Canada
Director: Robin Riad
Length: 2 mins
Synopsis: “Six Months” is a critique of alcohol within a North American cultural context, through societal pressure and mass marketing.
Country: Palestine
Director: Essa Grayeb
Length: 19 mins
Synopsis: Suspended Dawn is a poetic archeological excavation of Egypt’s golden age, the video essay is divided into chapters featuring digital manipulations overlaying footage from Chahine’s film and sounds.
Country: Palestine, Canada, Jordan
Director: Annie Sakkab
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: The Poem We Sang is a 20-minute, colour and black and white, experimental documentary that meditates on love and longing – the love of one’s family and the longing for one’s home, contemplated through overcoming the trauma of loss of family home and of forced migration, transforming lifelong regrets into a healing journey of creative catharsis and bearing witness.
Country: Syria
Director: Alhasan Yousef
Length: 19 mins
Synopsis: Occupied by Israel in 1967, the Syrian Golan has a military border running through it, which families “cross” by shouting to their loved ones. From his European exile, anxiety-ridden Alhasan Yousef attempts to break free from his inner isolation with this exploration of the power of sound, in an effort to reconnect with his lost country from afar.
Event Details
July 28, 2024
8:45 PM EDT
Christie Pits Park, 750 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M6G 3K4
Jafar Panahi’s Taxi uses a clever conceit to offer a window not only into the day-to-day lives of taxi drivers and other workers in Tehran, but also into the materialities of being a working filmmaker in Iran. In 2010, director Jafar Panahi was banned from making films in Iran for 20 years, for allegedly producing propaganda against the Iranian government. Rejecting the terms of the ban as censorship, Panahi began making films covertly. To make Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, Panahi disguised himself as a taxi driver and roamed the streets of Tehran, movie camera mounted firmly in place on his dashboard. Though this gives the film a documentary-style realism, the film is entirely fictional, and its use of non-professional actors, cinema verité style, and focus on social inequalities make it evocative of Italian Neorealist classic The Bicycle Thieves by way of fellow Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s A Taste of Cherry. Satisfyingly self-aware and extremely charming, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is an intimate portrait of working life in Tehran that foregrounds the humanity of those labouring in less than ideal circumstances.
The accompanying short films similarly take to the streets to explore the social inequities of work. Lisa Rideout’s One Leg In, One Leg Out follows Iman, who after a decade of working as a sex worker in Toronto makes the choice to become a social worker to help support her fellow trans community members who supported her for so long. Shot largely in Toronto’s Church-Wellesley neighbourhood, the film shows Iman as both a beloved regular at local bars and drag shows, and a tenacious self-starter eager to forge her path in a new profession. Similarly, Toronto filmmaker Mariam Zaidi’s short doc Over Time is a tender portrait of Regent Park resident Shafiq, a real-life taxi driver by night, shop clerk by day. An immigrant from Bangladesh in the ‘90s, he has seen Toronto change as Uber’s gig economy has taken over, his once stable job as a yellow-cab driver becoming increasingly precarious, and his local community squeezed by rapid gentrification. Like Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, these two documentary shorts contemplate how spaces around work are often where we form the communities necessary to survive and thrive
Co-presented with Toronto Outdoor Picture Show and Toronto Queer Film Festival.
Screenings:
Country: Iran
Director: Jafar Panahi
Length: 82 mins
Synopsis: Taxi uses a clever conceit to offer a window not only into the day-to-day lives of taxi drivers and other workers in Tehran, but also into the materialities of being a working filmmaker in Iran.
Country: Canada
Director: Mariam Zaidi
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: Through Shafiq, a ride-share driver and resident of Regent Park, we get a glimpse into one of the fastest changing industries and neighbourhoods in Toronto today.
Country: Canada
Director: Lisa Rideout
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: After a decade as a sex worker, Iman attempts to pursue her dream of becoming a social worker to help her transgender community members. As she explores the option of going back to college, One Leg In, One Leg Out questions whether tenacity, ambition and a life long dream are enough to overcome a challenging personal situation.