Safar

Safar Film Festival curator Rasha Salti reflects on the political power of Arab film-making and its currency in contemporary art.

This is the final blog post by guest blogger Malu Halasa, Writer in Residence for Safar: A Journey though Popular Arab Cinema, a season of classic and contemporary Arab cinema at the ICA from 21 – 27 September 2012.

Following the interwoven lives of eight characters, Kamla Abu Zekry's compelling ensemble film One-Zero (Wahed-Sefr),takes place on the eve of the Egypt v Cameroon match in the 2008 Africa World Cup Final.

In the 1993 film, Terrorism and the Kebab (Al-irhab wal-kabab), building and architecture are more than just backdrops.

Captain Abu Raed is screening tonight at 7pm with a post-screening Q&A with star Nadim Sawalha and director Amin Matalqa.

After a 15-year-long civil war, one way Lebanese artists reflected on the experience was the use or subversion of documentary archives to somehow suggest an alternative reality.

Few Arab musicals have ever attempted to tread the ground of Bosta, a film about the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war, exile, lost love and the generational struggle between tradition and modernity.

Just like today's pressures on young men and women in the Middle East to conform to an acceptable Muslim lifestyle, there were similar social pressures in the 1970s for what some would say represents the polar opposite - towards secularism and liberalism.

Alexandra, Why? (Iskanderija... lih?) won the Silver Bear Special Jury Prize at the 1978 Berlin Film Festival and for good reason. Its greatest strength lies in that it reveals a history not readily known in the West.