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
