Middle East

Death Without Mercy, directed by Waad Al-Kateab, is a powerful record of the disaster from the personal perspective of two Syrian families searching for their loved ones over 10 days in the earthquake’s aftermath. The shock of this disaster soon gives way to a damning record of human failure highlighting official incompetence and the lack of humanitarian aid impeding the search for these survivors. The film is at once a moving testament to human dignity and a heartfelt tribute to the lives that have been lost in this catastrophic event.

IN THE SHADOW OF BEIRUT

From the makers of Gaza, and executive produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, this documentary penetrates deep below the surface of Beirut, a still beautiful, yet deeply troubled city on the brink of financial collapse. Through intimate, character driven storytelling, the stark reality of life for the protagonists of the film is symbolic of the hundreds of thousands of others who fight for survival in the most diverse country in the Middle East.

MOURNING IN LOD

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict told through three people whose fates become inextricably linked in a vicious cycle of violence. The outpouring of love, anger, forgiveness and sorrow that follows in their wake offers a glimpse of morning light to offset a collective state of mourning with no end in sight. The film provides a first-hand account of the way our individual actions reverberate, amplify and shape the course of each other’s lives.

THIS RAIN WILL NEVER STOP

This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of peace and violence.

ANGELS OF SINJAR

Hanifa, a young Yezidi woman, miraculously survives the ISIS attack on the Yezidi religious and ethnic minority in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq. Her five younger sisters are all trucked off and enslaved. Based on exclusive access to one of the most dangerous and underreported places on earth, Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Hanna Polak tracks Hanifa’s mission to find her sisters and bring them home.

THE RETURN: LIFE AFTER ISIS

This moving documentary offers an intimate yet candid portrait of a group of Western women who devoted their young lives to ISIS, but who now want to be given the chance to rebuild their lives back at home, including Shamima Begum (UK) and Hoda Muthana (US), who made worldwide headlines when they left their countries as teenagers to join ISIS. These women now tell their stories for the very first time in this "stirring and vitally humane" (Variety) film.

SABAYA

With just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and their group risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS as Sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria. Sabaya is a powerful and exceptional work of documentary.

LIFT LIKE A GIRL

With the guidance of her relentless coach, a teen weightlifter emerges from a scrappy training camp in Egypt to compete at the championship level. Filmmaker Mayye Zayed intimately follows Zebiba and her coach in their challenging quest to win the next world championship over the course of four years while the stakes keep getting higher and their bonds deepen. Proving there is nothing that women can't do, the film observes the traditional gender dynamics that come into play with the male-dominated sport of weightlifting.

FAR FROM AFGHANISTAN

An omnibus film by five American filmmakers and a collective of young Afghan media journalists, Far From Afghanistan forms a mosaic of cinematic approaches to take a critical look at the longest overseas war in U.S. history. Inspired by the 1967 collaborative undertaking, 'Loin du Vietnam', 'Far from Afghanistan' explores, through a mosaic of approaches, issues of shared responsibility, history and memory - all in a concerted effort to help accelerate political resistance to the war.

FILMFARSI

Action, melodrama, car chases, lurid affairs, and flashy musical numbers! They all figured into Iran's pre-1979 cinema known as “filmfarsi.” Featuring a treasure trove of incredible movie clips (painstakingly sourced from surviving VHS tapes) and accompanied by fascinating social commentary, Filmfarsi explores this cinematic period as a mirror for the country during those turbulent times.

THE PAGEANT

The Miss Holocaust Survivor Beauty Pageant takes place every year to the delight of its participants and audience. To take part in this unique contest, sponsored by an Evangelical Christian organization, the female survivors have to retell their traumatic stories one more time. The Pageant is a fascinating and important documentary about how memory, politics and spectacle are interconnected.

JADDOLAND

A visit to her mother’s home art studio in Texas prompts the filmmaker to explore the meaning of home and the search for belonging across three generations of her Iraqi family. Winner of the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards.

METEORS

One night, meteors start to fall in a Kurdish village on Turkey’s southern border with Syria. Earlier that year, the villagers endured a sustained and brutal assault by Turkish military forces. Neither the incident nor the fatalities were ever covered by local media. Incorporating internet uploads, foreign news reports and intimate interviews, this poetic documentary attempts to correct the historical record during one night when the sky is lit up with meteors.

GULYABANI

Against the backdrop of the most violent period of post-Republic Turkey, Gulyabani relates a harrowing tale of survival, the story of a well-known clairvoyant who escaped abuse, kidnapping and violence; told using diary entries, letters to her estranged son, striking desaturated images of the Turkish landscape and reenactments of her childhood memories as well as excerpts from writings by Terry Eagleton (Literary Theory) and W.G. Sebald (The Emigrants).

ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT

A stirring and beautiful documentary from Academy Award nominated director James Longley (Iraq in Fragments), Angels Are Made of Light traces the lives of young students and their teachers at a school in the old city of Kabul. Interweaving the modern history of Afghanistan with present-day portraits, the film offers an intimate and nuanced vision of a society living in the shadow of war.

KOKA, THE BUTCHER

The legendary pigeon races of Cairo are captured on film for the first time in Koka, The Butcher, an award-winning short documentary which introduces viewers to a wondrous and peculiar world where pigeons are trained to compete in sky battles among rival neighborhoods for prizes, cash and bragging rights.

THE BROKER

A tragicomic glimpse inside a traditional Iranian dating agency, The Broker introduces us to Mrs. Sadri and her cadre of female employees who are determined to find their clients a husband, at all costs. The documentary offers an acute reminder that the fiercest agents of the patriarchy aren't always men.

AVA

When her overprotective mother questions her relationship with a boy — going so far as to visit a gynecologist — Ava, fomery a model student, begins to rebel against her parents, her school, and the society at large. Based on her own experiences, Sadaf Foroughi’s gripping debut explores what its like for a young girl’s coming of age in a strict, traditional society.

MY COFFEE WITH JEWISH FRIENDS

A new film from veteran filmmaker Manfred Kirchheimer is always a cause for celebration; with My Coffee, Kirchheimer uses a simple, humorous title as a screen to ask serious questions, from gender inequality to secularism to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, for a deeply thoughtful exploration of contemporary Jewish identity.

FORTINI/CANI

An elegiac and damning meditation on abuses of power and historical amnesia, this film records communist critic Franco Fortini reading excerpts of his book The Dogs of Sinai, which condemns capitalism and the state of Israel in the aftermath of the Six Day War while reflecting on his own Jewish heritage.

TOO EARLY/TOO LATE

A major influence on contemporary filmmakers, consisting entirely of a sequence of landscape shots, Straub-Huillet's Too Early / Too Late reflects on Egypt’s history of peasant struggle and liberation from Western colonization, linking it to class tensions in France shortly before the Revolution of 1789.

ONE DAY IN ALEPPO

Inspired by questions that followed screenings of Sundance winner Last Men in Aleppo, this short documentary (produced by Last Men director Feras Fayyad) is a portrait of ordinary people's lives as they try to live through a normal day in the besieged city of Aleppo.

LAST MEN IN ALEPPO

2018 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature, Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad’s breathtaking work – a searing example of boots-on-the-ground reportage – follows the efforts of the internationally recognized White Helmets; ordinary citizens who are the first to rush towards military strikes in the hope of saving lives.

THE DREAM OF SHAHRAZAD

An exploration of recent social and political upheavals across the Middle East, The Dream of Shahrazad contextualizes these events within a broader historical and cultural legacy by drawing on the famous collection of stories known as “The Arabian Nights."

LETTERS FROM BAGHDAD

Voiced and executive produced by Tilda Swinton, Letters from Baghdad is a visually rich, beautifully crafted documentary that tells the story of Gertrude Bell, who, more influential than her friend and colleague Lawrence of Arabia, shaped the modern Middle East in ways that still reverberate today.

A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME

Drawing on the work of German-Jewish ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann (1892-1939), filmmaker Jumana Manna sets out in search of the musical diversity of historical Palestine in this magical documentary.

ORIENTED

An exceptional, inspirational documentary about three gay Palestinian friends in Tel Aviv who form a non-violent group to fight for gender and national equality.

DAUGHTERS OF ANATOLIA

A singular portrait of a nomadic goat herding family whose livelihood and traditions are being threatened by an increasingly urbanized world.