Middle East Now, the film festival dedicated to the Middle East with a focus on Iran



Middle East Now will be from 4 to 9 October 2022, at the Cinema La Compagnia, at the Cinema Stensen and in other Florentine spaces, with a multifaceted program of events, including cinema, documentaries, art, exhibitions, music, food, meetings and cultural projects. This is a festival that has always been characterized by a strong attention to current events, to the story of the newest and most vibrant phenomena of the cultures and societies of the contemporary Middle East, which today more than ever need to be explored.


38 premiered films, awarded at the best international festivals, for a film journey that touches all the countries of the Middle East: strong stories, characters, the hot topics of current affairs in the most recent titles from Lebanon, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Egypt , Afghanistan, Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen. A program that will make the public aware of the cultures and societies of these countries, with a perspective that tries to go beyond the prejudices and clichés with which they are often represented.


A 13th edition with many special screenings, in which the protagonists will be directors and guests invited to Florence to present the films and explore them with the audience in the hall, with also an online program in the virtual room Più Compagnia in collaboration with MyMovies.


Middle East Now, the theme 2022: An abstract of home


We are constantly looking for a home. The house is a universal concept and has many dimensions. It can be a family, a partner, a child, or a close friend. Home is where you were born or any other place other than where you were born. It can be on the fringes, nonconformist and rebellious. One can find a home in culture and in the past, in being and becoming. It is found in spirituality and language, in the visible and in the invisible. We are continually looking for a home, for a sense of familiarity, which pushes us towards self-discovery, imposes questions of belonging and identity.


The program of this edition will present the works of artists and directors from the Middle East who use their creativity to express the innumerable meanings and interpretations of the concept of Home.


Focus on Iran


Also in this edition, Iranian cinema occupies a special place in the festival program, all the more due attention in these difficult and dramatic days that once again involve this country. Among the Italian premiere titles, the feature film IMAGINE (2022) by Ali Behrad, which will be present at the festival, a debut film that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, in which a taxi driver falls in love at night with a woman who cannot to have, played by star Leila Hatami, a dream tale that tells a love story that plays with fantasy and imagination. And two more beautiful shorts such as the award-winning doc THE DOLL by Elahe Esmaili (2022), in which a 35-year-old father agrees to the marriage of his 14-year-old daughter, a decision that triggers a heated confrontation in the family between very different perspectives and values. , and THE BARTER by Ziba Karamali, Emad Araad (2021) starring Parsa, a thirteen-year-old boy, who is trying to hide a secret from his father, for a Farhadi-style thriller.


Opening night
The opening film of this edition comes from Palestine and sees the return to the festival of the great director Hany Abu-Assad with his latest thrilling thriller HUDA’S SALON (2021), a spy story based on real events that sees a woman blackmailing a young mother turning her into a spy, and reveals a society poisoned by the betrayal and intrigues that come with the occupation. Jalal Masarwa, a young Palestinian actor among the protagonists of the film, will arrive in Florence.


Final evening
The film of the final evening will be Iranian, winner of the Best Film and Best Actor Award of the Horizons section at the last Venice Film Festival, and fresh candidate for the Academy Awards: WORLD WAR III by Houman Seyed, an extraordinary film, which with the urgency of a thriller and the clarity of a fairytale, it presents the grueling but compelling story of how a victim of life learns to imitate his oppressors.


Among the special events


The exhibition: Bound narratives. A Photobook Library
curated by Roï Saade
from 7 to 23 October at the Museo Novecento


Special event of Middle East Now 2022, in collaboration with Museo Novecento Firenze, is the Bound Narratives exhibition, a project conceived for the festival by the Lebanese curator Roï Saade that presents a curated selection of photography books made “by” and “about” the Middle East and North Africa, by a wide variety of talented authors and artists. The photobook is presented beyond its classic definition. Through documentary photography books, diaries, academic research, essays, archival images, sketches and more, Bound Narratives emphasizes the importance of sharing the myriad perspectives of local and diasporic communities, and the power of subversive narratives and self-representation. . A project that invites the viewer to expand their knowledge and discover wide-ranging narratives from countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia.


Focus cinema: An Abstract of Home through Cinema!


A curated selection of 8 documentary and fiction films, selected by the festival together with the Lebanese artist and curator Roï Saade, invites you to reflect on the concept of “home” in the Middle East, represented on the big screen through different perspectives: in nostalgia, in the family, in cinema, in the similar and in the different. Among the titles of the focus: from Iraq the international preview documentary TAKE ME TO THE CINEMA (2022), an extraordinary journey into the cinema of the Baghdad of yesteryear, in which the director Albaqer Jafeer draws a parallel between his anxieties as a young director and the story of the 65-year-old writer Nassif Falak, once a soldier, who found a safe haven in cinema during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s


From Palestine also comes THE STRANGER (2021) by Ameer Fakher Eldin, the first film that tells of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, centered on nostalgia as the desire for a home that no longer exists or has never existed;


From Lebanon, THE BLUE INMATES (2021) by director Zeina Daccache, a bold and exciting documentary that leads us to follow the staging of a play among the mentally ill inmates of the infamous Roumieh prison, launching a message of complaint about their status of prisoners for life; and again THE SEA AHEAD (2021), first work by the young director Eli Dagher, a beautiful and enigmatic portrait of Beirut, a tormented and impenetrable city, seen through the eyes of Jana, the young protagonist who returns to her country after several years, feeling totally disconnected from this reality.


On Afghanistan, the powerful documentary MELTING DREAMS (2021) by director Haidy Kancler, the story of a group of young Afghan girls who want to become professional skiers and represent Afghanistan at the Olympic Games.


From Iraq in Italian premiere OUR RIVER … OUR SKY (2021), the latest feature film by Maysoon Pachachi, which explores the “agonizing” decisions faced by an intertwined group of friends and family living in Baghdad in 2006, during the week which culminates with the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein: a film about how ordinary people find themselves living in the rubble of war and come to answer the eternal question: stay or leave? From Jordan, DAUGHTERS OF ABDUL-RAHMAN (2021) first feature by director and screenwriter Zaid Abu Amdan, an all-female drama starring four very different sisters, which depicts how many Jordanian women put the traditional expectations of their patriarchal society before own wishes.


Morocco with the beautiful all-female road movie MALIKATES [QUEENS] (2022) by the young director Yasmine Benkiran, acclaimed at the last Venice Film Festival. And again from Israel the intense documentary INNOCENCE by Guy Davidi (2022), famous for his Oscar-nominated doc “5 Broken Cameras”, which in the latest film that debuted in Venice tells the story of some Israeli child soldiers, enlisted after a phase of weak initial resistance and dead ends: their terrible stories through the diaries and amateur military films, retracing the stages from childhood to enlistment.


Also in collaboration with MOVIES THAT MATTER, the famous festival of the Hague, a selection of films focused on human rights and on films that produce social change: I AM A BASTARD (2022) by Ahmet Polat, documentary on the search for identity of a Moroccan actor transplanted to the Netherlands; and then ALONG THE WAY (2022) by Mijke De Jong, in which two twin sisters must survive the hostilities of Afghanistan after the loss of their parents. And finally BEIRUT DREAMS IN COLOR (2022), a documentary in which award-winning director Michael Collins tells us the story of Mashrou ‘Leila, one of the most famous indie rock bands in the Arab world – pioneering for social messages and with an openly gay frontman – a brave fan of theirs and a queer activist’s daunting battle for equality against religious extremists.


Tickets and useful information


Cinema La Compagnia (Via Cavour, 50r)
Cinema Stensen (Viale Don Minzoni 25C)


Afternoon screening
Ticket 4 €


Full afternoon ticket
(includes all afternoon screenings)
Full ticket 6 €


Evening screening
Full ticket 6 €
Reduced 5 € (under 30 years – over 65)


Festival subscription: 30 €


Presale Festival tickets at Cinema La Compagnia and online purchase at: www.cinemalacompagnia.it (online tickets are recommended – same purchase price at the cinema cash desk)


Online festival subscription and virtual room access Più Compagnia: € 7.90
https://www.mymovies.it/ondemand/middleastnow/




Thursday 6 October – 8.00 pm
Aperitif Tasting + screening:
single special ticket 15 €
| only evening screening € 6 full and € 5 reduced.












Middle East Now, the film festival dedicated to the Middle East with a focus on Iran