About the short film program:
Short films offer a unique and accessible medium to explore emerging voices and viewpoints within the film industry, therefore we are excited to present a diverse selection of films that showcase the talents and perspectives of Arab filmmakers.
Among the films featured in this year’s selection are Warsha, a powerful short film which explores LGBTQ+ themes and Syrialism, an experimental docudrama directed by Dalia Al-Kury. Furthermore, we are thrilled to have the directors Karrar Al-Azzawi, Mike Malajalian as well as Dalia Al-Kury visiting the festival to share their unique insights and creative processes with our audiences. We hope you enjoy the program and the opportunity to engage with these remarkable filmmakers.
Info:
Screening format: DCP
Original title: ورشة
Director: Dania Bdeir
Writer: Dania Bdeir
Cast: Khansa, Hassan Aqqoul, Kamal Saleh
Country of origin: Lebanon
Language: Arabic
Subtitles: English
Runtime: 15 minutes
About the film:
In the privacy of a construction crane, a migrant worker indulges in his secret passion and discovers a sense of liberation, while hanging high above Beirut.
Warsha had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Jury Prize for the Best International Fiction.
Dania Bdeir (born 1989, Kanada)
Dania Bdeir is a Lebanese filmmaker born in Montreal. She has an MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Her short film In White received the Spike Lee Production Fund and had its world premiere at Clermont-Ferrand before screening at BFI London, Uppsala, and more than 30 other festivals worldwide.
Info:
Screening format: DCP
Original title: بغداد تثور
Director: Karrar Al-Azzawi
Countries of origin: Iraq, Norway
Language: Arabic
Subtitles: English
Runtime: 30 minutes
About the film:
In the streets of Baghdad, a group of young people march, regardless of class and religion, standing side by side in a fight to reclaim their country. When the peaceful protests are met with bullets and tear gas, 20-year-old Tiba chooses to provide first aid to the wounded. But for Tiba, the price for the revolution that never came will be very high.
Karrar Al-Azzawi (Iraq)
Karrar Al-Azzawi is an Iraqi filmmaker, photographer and artist living in Norway. Al-Azzawi works as a film director at Integral Film. As a filmmaker, his vision is to help change the world by promoting greater understanding and solidarity between people.
Info:
Screening format: DCP
Original title: تشنّج
Director: Mike Malajalian
Writer: Mike Malajalian
Cast: Dana Mikhail
Country of origin: Lebanon
Language: Arabic
Subtitles: English
Runtime: 9 minutes
About the film:
A woman alone in bed at night starts having convulsions after a mysterious phone message. A stain of mold on the wall starts growing. How will she escape the night?
Mike Malajalian (Lebanon)
Mike Malajalian is a Filmmaker and Graphic Designer from Beirut, Lebanon. He worked as an Art Director in many advertising agencies and as a freelance Graphic Designer. His films have been officially selected and awarded in many film festivals around the world. Reprisal (2017) won the Best Maskooon short film award in Lebanon and went on to participate in more than 25 international film festivals. Currently he is completing a Master’s in Cinema & Video Art at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Italy and developing his first feature film.
Info:
Screening format: DCP
Original title: -
Director: Dalia Al-Kury
Writers: Dalia Al Kury, Stev “Salam” Osten
Cast: Stev 'Salam' Osten, Angie Hussami Finvold, Tamar Makdis, Omar Aljundi, Aya Mohammad, Mariam El Jeries, Jørgen Lorentzen
Country of origin: Norway
Languages: Arabic, Norwegian
Subtitles: English
Runtime: 21 minutes
About the film:
This experimental docu-drama follows Salam, an enigmatic man living in Oslo, as he deals with the survivor’s guilt of having left his family in war-torn Syria. His guilt is manifested by nightmarish visits, as well as a juxtaposition of the ravaged streets of Der-el-Zor and the tranquil Norwegian suburbs, which blur the boundaries between reality and imagination. The film offers a powerful and empathetic exploration of the complexities of trauma, and how trauma challenges the notion of time as experienced in a linear way, and of the “now” and “then” as experienced separately.
Dalia Al Kury (born 1980, Jordan)
Dalia Al-Kury is a Jordanian Palestinian independent documentary filmmaker and author. Her films have premiered at Hotdocs, DOK Leipzig, IDFA and major film festivals around Europe. Her film Privacy of Wounds was nominated for six prestigious awards such as “the right to know” prize at One World and the Human Rights Award at IDFA. She holds an MA in Screen Documentary from Goldsmiths University and is currently an Artistic Research fellow at the Norwegian Film School. Al Kury resides in Oslo but her lens is always pointing towards the Arab World.