The festival will present two films made by a new generation of Egyptian authors. We will open this edition with Rags and Tatters by the director, Ahmad Abdalla, whose previous film, Microphone , won him numerous international awards. The peregrinations of a rapidly changing society in the heart of the city of Cairo will also be observed during the screening of Asham , the first feature film by Egyptian Maggie Morgan.
We will then discover Palestine Stereo , a film in which Rashid Masharawi, a filmmaker from Gaza, tackles with sensitivity the protagonists' desire to escape their social condition.
Lebanese cinema will also be in the spotlight of this edition.
Head to Beirut with the choral film Blind Intersections by director Lara Saba, who for her first feature film chooses to deal with the divisions between the social classes of the capital while Un Homme d'Honneur , Jean-Claude's second feature film Codsi portrays the ambivalence between modernity and tradition within the Lebanese and Jordanian communities. A great figure in Syrian cinema, Mohamad Malas, will do us the honor of being present at the screening of his latest film, A Ladder for Damascus .

A dive into the heart of the Maghreb with Zero by filmmaker Nour-Eddine Lakhmari allows us to capture the dynamism of Moroccan cinema. This film is inspired in particular by the codes of American film noir.

On the Algerian side, La Preuve, by director Amor Hakkar, features actor Nabil Asli, revealed in Le Repenti by Merzak Allouache. By dealing with a subject still taboo in many societies, male infertility, this feature film explores another side of Arab cinema, more intimate and universal.

The preview film, Bastardo by young Tunisian filmmaker Néjib Belkhadi, the immersion of a poor neighborhood and its socio-cultural upheavals, will close this edition.

This introspection allows us to explore different forms of Arab cinematography by promoting above all a plurality of views and themes. The proposed film works, each in their own way, encourage the viewer to think of Arab cinemas as reflections of their societies but also witnesses of an era in constant evolution. These films, real windows on the world, allow us to discover a cinema still far too little distributed in France.

Abdellah Zerguine

artistic director