The Wedding of Zein (1976)
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Handsomely-mounted historical epic concerns the birth of the Islamic faith and the story of the prophet Mohammed.
Summer in L.A., it's hot. Homeland Security has set the threat level at red; they're searching for several Arabs alleged to be terrorists. Mustafa, an Egyptian immigrant who runs a falafel shop, comes to the FBI's attention; they investigate him. He has other problems: his young teen son no longer wants to be a Muslim; his sister, a nurse, objects to Mustafa arranging her marriage to a cousin from Egypt. She has a non-Arab suitor of her own. Omar, an employee of Mustafa, is a struggling actor who doesn't want to play only terrorists. Mustafa hopes to open a real restaurant and has a potential partner in Sam, a Jew, whose family objects. What price the American dream?
An epic about British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.
A cattle herder and his family who reside in the dunes of Timbuktu find their quiet lives -- which are typically free of the Jihadists determined to control their faith -- abruptly disturbed. A look at the brief occupation of Timbuktu by militant Islamic rebels.
The Square, a new film by Jehane Noujaim (Control Room; Rafea: Solar Mama), looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egyptâs new democracy. Catapulting us into the action spread across 2011 and 2012, the film provides a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of the struggle. Cairoâs Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarekâs fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.
The secret US abduction of a suspected terrorist leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York that lead to the declaration of martial law.
Young French officer Augustin Robert escorts artist Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis to Egypt during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. Napoleon sent de Paradis to record Egypt's great monuments and temples that are destroyed by French soldiers in acts of barbarism. During combat, Augustin and Jean-Michel are separated from their regiment, and they start wandering through the desert fighting for their life. In one of the canyons Augustin meets a leopard he names Simoom and a strange bond between them appears.
A young Arab is caught between cultures as he is sent to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Israel in the 1980s.
An 8-year-old boy and his dog are left to face a vast desert wasteland alone after a plane crash, while an army of men and machines penetrate the desert searching for them. Based on true events.
Two drag-queens and a transsexual contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice Springs, a resort town in the remote Australian desert. They head west from Sydney aboard their lavender bus, Priscilla. En route, it is discovered that the woman they've contracted with is the wife of one of the drag queens. Their bus breaks down, and is repaired by Bob, who travels on with them.
Two Turkish anti-terrorist agents are sent to New York City on a mission to find and bring back the dangerous Islamic leader codenamed "Dajjal", believed to be hiding in there. Working with the FBI and NYPD, the agents orchestrate the arrest of Hadji Gumus, a well-respected Muslim scholar and family man who years before fled to the United States after being released from a Turkish prison, where he served time for murder. This tale love, friendship, peace and prejudices, takes us on a journey seeking to answer the question of whether innocence or guilt even matters to one who lusts for vengeance.
A disgraced Confederate Colonel who has deserted his command flees to the Everglades where he encounters a disparate group of four other Southern deserters. Together they struggle to find their way out of the swamp and resolve their own personal demons under the eyes of hostile Seminoles as they battle to survive the elements and each other.
Ajami is an area of Tel Aviv in Israel where Arabs, Palestinians, Jews and Christians live together in a tense atmosphere. Omar, an Israeli Arab, struggles to save his family from a gang of extortionists. He also courts a beautiful Christian girl: Hadir. Malek, an illegal Palestinian worker, tries to collect enough money to pay for his mother's operation. Dando, an Israeli cop, does his utmost to find his missing brother who may have been killed by Palestinians.
In this fictional documentary, U.S. prisons are at capacity, and President Nixon declares a state of emergency. All new prisoners, most of whom are connected to the antiwar movement, are now given the choice of jail time or spending three days in Punishment Park, where they will be hunted for sport by federal authorities. The prisoners invariably choose the latter option, but learn that, between the desert heat and the brutal police officers, their chances of survival are slim.
A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict.
The first of Nacer Khemir's highly-regarded Desert Trilogy that includes The Dove's Lost Necklace and Bab'Aziz - The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul. Khemir creates an exotic world with Wanderers of the Desert when a young teacher arrives to take over a village school isolated in the shimmering desert. Legendary figures materialize out of wells and the desert itself, groups of children hurry through a labyrinth of underground corridors, the teacher is whisked away to a mysterious rendezvous and never returns.
Sentenced to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is alone in the world and can neither read nor write. On his arrival at the prison, he seems younger and more brittle than the others detained there. At once he falls under the sway of a group of Corsicans who enforce their rule in the prison. As the 'missions' go by, he toughens himself and wins the confidence of the Corsican group.
Based on a controversial French novel, Lila Says tells the story of a quiet young poet named Chimo who develops a crush on the pretty, blond Lila, a girl who recently moved into his Arab ghetto with her aunt. When the leader of a rival gang also falls for Lila, the ensuing love triangle initiates a journey of sexual discovery -- and sets off a chain of devastating events.
Set against the backdrop of the turbulent period in the late 60's leading up to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan, MATIR MOINA (The Clay Bird) tells the story of a family torn apart by religion and war. A young boy, Anu, is sent off to a strict Islamic school, or madrasa, by his deeply religious father Kazi. As the political divisions in the country intensify, an increasing split develops between moderate and extremist forces within the madrasa, mirroring a growing divide between the stubborn but confused Kazi and his increasingly independent wife. Touching upon themes of religious tolerance, cultural diversity, and the complexity of Islam, MATIR MOINA has universal relevance in a crisis-ridden world.
When an Amacor oil rig in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia proves unproductive, Captain Frank Towns and copilot "A.J." are sent to shut the operation down. However, on their way to Beijing, a major dust storm forces them to ditch their C-119 Flying Boxcar in an uncharted area of the desert.
An American Army officer is recruited by the yet to exist Israel to help them form an army. He is disturbed by this sudden appeal to his jewish roots. Each of Israel's Arab neighbors has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country as soon as partition is granted. He is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins.
The film is about the difficult situation in which the Pakistanis in particular and the Muslims in general are caught up since 9/11. There is a war going on between the Fundamentalists and the Liberal Muslims. This situation is creating a drift not only between the Western world and the Muslims, but also within the Muslims. The educated and modern Muslims are in a difficult situation because of their approach towards life and their western attire. They are criticized and harassed by the fundamentalists and on the other hand the Western world sees them as potential suspects of terrorism just because of their Muslim names.
An Arab oil organization devises a plan to wreck the world economy in order to cause anarchy and chaos.
The setting is the east shore of the Caspian Sea (today's Turkmenistan) where the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov has been fighting the Civil War in Russian Asia for a number of years. After being hospitalised and then demobbed, he sets off home to join his wife, only to be caught up in a desert fight between a Red Army cavalry unit and Basmachi guerrillas. The cavalry unit commander, Rahimov, "convinces" Sukhov to help, temporarily, with the protection of abandoned women of the Basmachi guerrilla leader Abdullah's harem. Leaving a young Red Army soldier, Petrukha, to assist Sukhov with the task, Rahimov and his cavalry unit set out to pursue fleeing Abdullah.Sukhov and women from Abdullah's harem return to a nearby shore town. Soon, looking for a seaway across the border, Abdullah and his gang come to the same town...
Once-not long ago-a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many remember this... It wasn't that important. A band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town.
A con man with his beautiful accomplice and a hostage steals a half million dollars worth of diamonds but finds they're all lost in the desert without water.
An American woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband, must find a way to escape with her daughter as well.
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defense minister and his wife move next door; the Secret Service orders the trees removed for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority (useless), Israeli army (dismissive), and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case; this older client attracts him. While the courts deliberate, the Israelis fence her trees and prohibit her from entering the grove. As the trees wither, the defense minister's wife and, separately, an Israeli journalist, look on Salma with sympathy. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?
When King Demba War sides with the Muslims, the Ceddo kidnap his daughter, Princess Dior Yacine, to protest their forcible conversion to Islam.
A fatherless family immigrates to Israel from Egypt during the British Mandate period. The film traces the hardships the family suffers in the politically unstable country.
Ayat Ayat Cinta is a beautifully portrayed Islamic love story â a tale of a virtuous Muslim protagonist who overcomes all obstacles of life maintaining pure ideals.
During World War I a British soldier, charged with desertion, is defended by an officer who at first despises his actions and then grows to feel sympathy for him.
By the order of King of Habasha Abraha, one of his army commanders charges ahead Mecca to ruin the House of God. He leads thousands of soldiers, horses and elephants all fully equipped. By Godâs will in 3km distance from Mecca, in its outskirts the elephants come to a standstill refusing to take any more steps. Millions of small birds throw red hellish pebbles carrying in their beaks on Abrahaâs forces and the army is all annihilated. A month later, the Holy Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (PBUH) is born. This film depicts the age of Paganism and all its oppressions, cruelty and injustice through the eyes of Muhammad up to the age of 13. âWeâre going to help open your eyes to what Islam really is all about,â Majidi added. âWe have a lot of positive things to share with the world, provided that the West is ready for such a dialogue. I think that Iran can have something someting strong to say through its arts and culture.â
The biopic of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader.
In Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married with Tallel, a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son Hatten married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother Marwan is a wolf trader that lives in Italy. His sister Amal has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage with Amin is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony.
The movie takes place in the early 18th century on the borders between Bosnia and Dalmatia, the crossroad between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice. It deals with issues relating to the region's native Croats as they struggle between to live between two empires and two faiths: Catholicism and Islam.
The film narrates the story of Cuba Mukundan (Sreenivasan) who can be called an 'impractical idealist.' He is a staunch leftist who lives for the movement. Circumstances force him to take up a job in Dubai. But he finds himself a misfit in a highly materialistic world. He also realizes that the Malayalis working in this region, whom he had earlier mocked for leaving the country for monetary gains, actually perform menial jobs and physical labor in order to support their families back home. He has always had a soft corner for China as a result of his leftist leanings and when he meets a Chinese girl, she quickly finds a special place in his heart as she symbolizes China to him. Through her, he also learns of the Communist failings in other parts of the world.
The story takes place on the desert planet "Pluke" in the "Kin-dza-dza" galaxy, where two Soviet humans previously unknown to each other ("Uncle Vova", a gruff construction foreman from Moscow, and "The Fiddler", a student from Georgia) are stranded due to an accidental encounter with an alien teleportation device. The movie describes their long quest to find a way back home.
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
French drama based on the 1996 kidnapping and killing of seven monks in Algeria. A group of Trappist monks reside in the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, where they live in harmony with the largely muslim population. When a bloody conflict between Algeria's army and Muslim Jihadi insurgents disrupts the peace, they are forced to consider fleeing the monastery and deserting the villagers they have ministered to. In the face of deadly violence the monks wrestle with their faith and their convictions, eventually deciding to stay and help their neighbours keep the army and the insurgents at bay.
Evan Bonner is a deserter from the Vietnam war; he is on his way back to America to give himself up when he meets Deirdre McCluskey, a beautiful if petulant model. The two make an unlikely couple, but once in France the magic of Paris works its charm and these two vulnerable people finally find each other.
The film explores the Arab-Israeli conflict as seen through the experiences of an Arab family in newly-liberated city of Quneitra, headed by a resistance fighter.
A team of U.S. government agents is sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East.
An American accountant bombarded with cable news and the media's obsession with terrorist plots in the post 9-11 world, receives a jolt when an unattached Islamic graduate student moves in next door.
Set during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, this epic drama is both the personal story of a middle-class Bahraini family and an account of the hopes and faith the Arab world had in Jamal Abdul Nasser as its leader. Intimately told, it skillfully interweaves the personal and the general to reveal a society built on male domination and female sacrifice, as women attempt to enjoy freedom of choice.
Director Nabil Ayouch Producer Nabil Ayouch, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, Eric Van Beuren, Patrick Quinet Screenwriter Jamal Belmahi With Abdelhakim Rachid, Abdelilah Rachid, Hamza Souidek Morocco-France-Belgium 2012 Ayouchâs film follows two brothers over the course of a decade. While they begin as kids in search of thrills in the sprawling slums of Moroccoâs Sidi Moumen, we witness their gradual, and ultimately shocking, radicalisation. Rather than opt for dry didacticism, however, Ayouch fashions a visually sumptuous and often breathless coming-of-age story that is reminiscent, at times, of Fernando Meirellesâ City of God, albeit with a tragic twist in the tale. A major achievement by one of North Africaâs most important filmmakers.
In attempt to find out who he is and where his roots lie, Alija Osmanovic discovers something far deeper and more important. He slowly discovers an evil that follows him as his destiny regardless of what his ancestors were called.Trying to find the reasons for this evil, he finds himself in a vicious circle. Running away from an irrational fear within him, he finds the road to his faith...
The movie follows a group of young friends in the city of Tel Aviv and is as much a love song to the city as it is an exploration of the claim that people in Tel Aviv are isolated from the rest of the country and the turmoil it's going through. The movie looks at young people's lives in Tel Aviv through the POVs of gays and straights, Jews and Arabs, men and women.
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.
Stranded on an isolated desert road, two life-long friends fight for survival as their already strained relationship spirals into knife-wielding madness.
The filmed version of the novel by Michael Ondaatje of the same name. This film tells of love stories during the turbulent times of World War 2. Director Anthony Minghella films the biography of Ladislaus Almasy.
Sergeant Joe Gunn and his tank crew pick up five British soldiers, a Frenchman and a Sudanese man with an Italian prisoner crossing the Libyan Desert to rejoin their command after the fall of Tobruk. Tambul, the Sudanese leads them to an abandoned desert fortress where they hope to find water. Soon a detachment of German soldiers arrives and attempts to barter food for water, but Gunn and his followers refuse. When the Germans attack, Gunn leads his desert-weary men in a desperate battle, hoping that British reinforcements can arrive in time.
Based in a London suburb Mahmud Nasir lives with his wife, Saamiya, and two children, Rashid and Nabi. His son plans to marry Uzma, the step-daughter of Egyptian-born Arshad Al-Masri, a so-called 'Hate Cleric' from Waziristan, Pakistan. Mahmud, who is not exactly a devout Muslim, he drinks alcohol, and does not pray five times, but does agree that he will appease Arshad, without whose approval the marriage cannot take place. Shortly thereafter Mahmud, while going over his recently deceased mother's documents, will find out that he was adopted, his birth parents were Jewish, and his name is actually Solly Shimshillewitz.
A commander receives a citation for an attack on Rommel's headquarters, which is actually undeserved as the commander is unfit for his job. On top of that, unbeknownst to him, his wife is having an affair with one of his officers.
In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.
An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day.[Synopsis from the director, courtesy of Cannes Film Festival] : "The Time That Remains" is a semi biographic film, in four historic episodes, about a family--my family--spanning from 1948, until recent times. The film is inspired by my fatherâs diaries of his personal accounts, starting from when he was a resistant fighter in 1948, and by my motherâs letters to family members who were forced to leave the country since then. Combined with my intimate memories of them and with them, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labeled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland.
A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.
In 1964, a brash new pro boxer, fresh from his olympic gold medal victory, explodes on to the scene: Cassius Clay. Bold and outspoken, he cuts an entirely new image for African American's in sport with his proud public self confidence and his unapologetic belief that he is the greatest boxer of all time. Yet at the top of his game, both Ali's personal and professional lives face the ultimate test.
On the Arabian Peninsula in the 1930s, two warring leaders come face to face. The victorious Nesib, Emir of Hobeika, lays down his peace terms to rival Amar, Sultan of Salmaah. The two men agree that neither can lay claim to the area of no manâs land between them called The Yellow Belt. In return, Nesib adopts Amarâs two boys Saleeh and Auda as a guarantee against invasion. Twelve years later, Saleeh and Auda have grown into young men. Saleeh, the warrior, itches to escape his gilded cage and return to his fatherâs land. Auda cares only for books and the pursuit of knowledge. One day, their adopted father Nesib is visited by an American from Texas. He tells the Emir that his land is blessed with oil and promises him riches beyond his wildest imagination. Nesib imagines a realm of infinite possibility, a kingdom with roads, schools and hospitals all paid for by the black gold beneath the barren sand. There is only one problem. The precious oil is located in the Yellow Belt.
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