Middle East Cinema

In the middle of his own heart surgery, an Egyptian filmmaker remembers his life. In fact his old self, as a child, is accused of attempted murder of his new self. Through the metaphoric trial, we are drawn into his life in relation with the Egyptian revolution, his constant need for success, and the effect the American Dream has on him.

A poor peasant woman becomes a symbol of worker oppression in this somber social drama directed by Henri Barakat. Azziza (Faten Hamama) is brutally raped by a guard when she goes into the fields to gather potatoes for her husband (Abdallah Gheiss). She does not relate the incident to her husband who is suffering from an undisclosed illness. Azziza hides the pregnancy and strangles the baby after it is born, but she also dies soon thereafter. The migrant workers rally around her memory as she becomes a martyr to the cause of the struggling peasants.

Cairo: a 70-year-old building of once-luxury flats with tenements on the roof. Zika, an aging libertine, feuds with his sister. Pius Haj Azzam takes a second wife, in secret, to satisfy sexual drive within religious bounds. Bothayna, poor and beautiful, supports her family, wanting to do so with dignity intact. Her former fiancé, Taha, the janitor's son, humiliated by the police, turns to fundamentalism. Hatem, a gay editor, seduces and corrupts a young man from the sticks. Two brothers, Copts, one a tailor and one Zika's factotum, connive for property. Allah is on most everyone's lips, and corruption is in their hearts. European values, both refined and worldly, provide a subtext.

Yehia is a young man living in the cosmopolitan Alexandria during World War II. Inspired by American movies and Shakespeare, he aspires to be an actor, but struggles to pursue his Hollywood dream, given the constraints of his life in the middle class and the horrors of war.

Husain is the head of a large Egyptian family, who has problems managing the cost of the marriage of his eldest daughter. He decides to take some amount from his financial trust in the company where he works with the intention of refunding later. In this context, the film shows the social life of the Egyptian family at the time.

Samir is the head of a small family and a bank employee and stable in his work, but separated after the decision to reduce the employment and then surprise that his bank balance zero and after days find a box with a mobile phone to meet a call changed his life.

A corrupt mayor, who rules the village's people with power and injustice, forces another poor man's wife secretly to marry him in order to have a child.

The events of the second part of the film begin five years after the events of the first part, where Dr. Yehia married (Lobna), summoned to the Department of Dangerous Cases (8 West) for women, and meets there who manipulates his life and the life of his family, so he take the blue elephant pills trying to control things and solve puzzles that meets him.

When Mona marries the seemingly decent police officer Hisham, she finds out there is more into him than what he shows to the people.

The graphic account of a poverty-stricken family living in Tehran through the days before the youngest daughter of the family, Somaieh, is departing to start her marriage to a supposedly rich Afghan. While all members of the family have their worries about the wholeness of the marriage, she is struggling with her madly debilitating troubles including a silly mother who is gravely ill, a drug abusing brother, an obsessively compulsive sister, a considerably smart teenage brother who is being ruined in the environment, and a cunning oldest brother in need of money.

A dramedy about illness, intimacy and death sparkles with the lighthearted touch of Director Ayten Amin. Hussein, played by Khaled abol Naga, is a terminally ill, yet charming architect who enjoys a solitary routine in his old family home, and a variety of female visitors. Not realising his past is about to catch up with him, Hussein's sister and her grandson move into the house, disrupting a well established lifestyle, and forcing him to re-examine his ideas about life, love, and family.

A basketball couch Bashir ends up living in a same flat with a drum player Bebo. Unaware of each others flat mates, they meet and fall in love, waiting to be surprised...

A Coptic leper and his orphaned apprentice leave the confines of the leper colony for the first time and embark on a journey across Egypt to search for what is left of their families.

A simple minded peasant was recruited in the Egyptian army where he was deceived to believe that political activists are his homeland enemies, but not for so long.

Capernaüm ("Chaos") tells the story of Zain (Zain al-Rafeea), a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the "crime" of giving him life. The film follows Zain as he journeys from gutsy, streetwise child to hardened 12-year-old "adult" fleeing his negligent parents, surviving through his wits on the streets, where he meets Ethiopian migrant worker Rahil, who provides him with shelter and food, as Zain takes care of her baby son Yonas in return. Zain later gets jailed for committing a violent crime, and finally seeks justice in a courtroom.

A small peasant village's struggles against the careless inroads of the large local landowner, The Land shows why political oppression does not necessarily lead to a sense of solidarity among the disinherited.

A young man from the country arrives in Cairo to finish his education. His landlady, a widow and successful businesswoman in the quarter of the Citadel, seduces him. Although she teaches him much about life she also makes him forget his obligations to his family, his studies, even his religion. When he tries to put her aside she attempts to force him to give up everything in which he believes.

10 Separate stories about the "25 January " revolution and the Egyptian people in the revolution, the protests against the previous President Hosni Mubarak and the departure of President Hosni Mubarak and also displays what happened in Tahrir Square since the start of the sit-in.