Arab cinema at the Filmoteca
The Mostra goes back to the in-person format with the screening of 14 films.
The XV edition of the Mostra de Cinema Àrab i Mediterrani de Catalunya goes back to its in-person format after the pandemic and returns to the Filmoteca. The event is organized by charity Sodepau in collaboration with the Barcelona City Council and the Culture Department of the Generalitat. Its goals are: Firstly, to open up the Arabic cinematographic views, which are usually unknown; secondly, to break western stereotypes, which tend to simplify, and to show the richness and complexity of Arab societies; and thirdly, to give voice to the hopes, worries, contradictions and conflicts that the states in the south and east of the Mediterranean are experiencing.
This desire for social transformation meets the revision of historical memory through the screening of 14 films and documentaries from different origins. Some are based on real-life events, while others talk about dystopic realities without forgetting the female point of view — in charge of Saudi Arabian Shahada Ameen and Egyptian Manal Khaled — nor the Berber cultural reality.
The opening session will take place on November 4 at 7.30pm in the Filmoteca with the screening of the film 200 meters. The event will be attended by the young Palestinian filmmaker and author of the film Ameen Nayfeh, by festival director Txell Bargulat, by David Listar, director of Global Justice and International Cooperation of the Barcelona City Council; and Esteve Rimbau, director of the Filmoteca.
On November 6 at 4pm, they will premiere Jean Genet: notre père de fleurs, Dalila Ennadre's posthumous work, with a presentation by her daughter Lylia. On November 9, the festival will retrieve Un verano en la Goulette (1995), by Tunisian film director and screenwriter Férid Boughedir, who will act as master of ceremonies for L'home de cendra, a story about pederasty filmed by his compatriot Nouri Bouzid. Another classic will be Mokhtar (1968), by Algerian film director Sadok Ben Aïcha, on the 12.
The rest of the programmed works are the science fiction movie Scales (on 5/11), the Sudanese documentary Parlant dels arbres (on 6/11), the Moroccan thriller Zanka Contact (on 7/11), the portrait of Egyptian women Trapped (on 11/11), the psychological drama Abou Leila and the story about modernity disorders in Pastorales eléctriques (on 13/11).
The in-person part of the Mostra festival will finish on November 14 at 7pm with Miguel's War, a production about a Lebanese homosexual man who lives in Madrid. Its author, Eliane Raheb will be there alongside interpreter and professor of the Ramon Llull University Miguel Jelelaty. At the same time, the documentary La langue Zahara will be shown online. It tells the story of the uprooting of journalist Fatima Sissani's mother in France, who left the Djurdjura mountains in the Kabylia region 36 years earlier.
You can get tickets online through this link a week before the start or at the Filmoteca's ticket office from Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am. to 2pm and from Tuesdays to Sundays from 3.30pm to 8pm. If you opt for the first option, remember to show, if eligible, the relevant accreditation for a reduced fare for students, unemployed or disabled people, members of a large single-parent family, under-30s, over-65s and holders of a public library network card.