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WE ARE HERE

WE ARE HERE
52 minutes, 2012
Director : Abdallah YAHYA (Tunisia)
Production : Perspective Production (Tunisia)

 

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“We are here” is a documentary film about how several young people searched for a way out of their dark reality to find positive energy. In a Tunis suburb a group of young rappers try to make their voices heard in songs reflecting their daily suffering. Elsewhere a group of school students show solidarity by taking a citizens’ initiative …

 

Abdallah YAHYA was born in Gafsa (Tunisia) in 1979. He studied at the Manouba Higher Institute of Multimedia Arts. He was assistant director on various series and telefilms for Tunisian television and on foreign film and television productions. He has directed several clips and commercials. “We are here” is his first documentary.

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SACRED STONES

SACRED STONES
52 minutes, 2012
Réalisation : Muayad ALAYAN et Laila HIGAZI (Palestine)
Production : Palcine Productions (Palestine)

 

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Natural stone is often seen as Palestine’s “white gold”, because it is the Territory’s most requested raw material. But what the stone industry produces is largely requisitioned for Israeli needs – which includes the illegal settlements in Palestinian territory. In the villages, towns and refugee camps, the stone is hacked out at incredible speed, causing serious ecological, social and health problems. The only response Palestinian citizens get to their complaints is heavy Israeli repression, the indifference of international organizations or the denial of Palestinian authorities, powerless in the face of changes in the industry.

 
Muayad ALAYAN is a Palestinian director and cameraman. Having studied film in San Francisco he returned to Palestine and now lives in Jerusalem. He made a short film “Lesh Sabreen?” which has been selected by several festivals. He teaches film at the Dar Al Kalima College in Bethlehem.

Laila HIGAZI is a biologist. Having studied at the Vrije Universiteit van Brussel, she moved to Jerusalem where she trained as a documentary film-maker. She coordinates several environmental projects on the West Bank.

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LIVING SKIN

LIVING SKIN
48 minutes, 2010
Director : Fawzi SALEH (Egypt)
Production : AlBatrik Art Production (Egypt)

 

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Watching children working in a leather tannery in Cairo we discover the inhuman conditions which the people who live and work in the tanneries have to endure, surrounded by very dangerous chemicals, harmful to man and the environment.

 

Fawzi SALEH is a script-writer, filmmaker and Human Rights activist. He obtained a degree in script-writing at the Cairo Film Institute in 2009 and a Masters in history at the Suez Canal University in 2003. He has collaborated on several documentary films, drama films, TV series and sitcoms.
In 2006 he made a short film “Mocha”, and now the documentary “Living Skin”.

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ICH LIEBE DICH

ICH LIEBE DICH
75 minutes, 2012
Director : Emine Emel BALCI (Turkey)
Production : Unafilm (Allemagne), Motiva Film (Turkey), ZDF (Germany)

 

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“Ich Liebe Dich” is a film about love and expectation. It shows us the life of peasant women in one of the most remote, impoverished regions of Turkey who dream of learning German. According to the new German law on immigration, to obtain a visa they have to prove they have a basic knowledge of the language. If they want to join their husbands in Germany, these women must work hard to learn the language of Goethe.

 

Emine Emel BALCI was born in 1984. She studied film and television at Istanbul’s Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. Having worked as an assistant director and scriptwriter, she began shooting her own films: the documentary “Gölun Kadınları – Women of the Lake” and a short drama film “Bekleyiş – The Waiting”.

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YASMINA & MOHAMMED

63 minutes, 2012
Réalisation : Régine ABADIA (France)
Production : La Huit (France)

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Yasmina Khadra’s story is rather unusual. Her life is an epic. This best-selling authoress, whose early novels are set against the background of the Algerian civil war of the 1990’s, is in fact a man. His real name is Mohammed Moulessehoul. An Algerian army officer, he fought the Islamist wave which plunged Algeria into a bloodbath. He spent his sleepless nights writing novels which were published under a pseudonym made up of his wife’s two first names. As a sort of road movie between Algeria and France, this film unfolds as a journey through Yasmina Khadra’s work, his complex personality, and his life story which has been mixed up with the great History of Algeria since independence.

Régine ABADIA made her first short film “Premier Outrage” in 1985. She then made several short and medium-length drama films, including “Les Bêtes”. For the last fifteen years, she has made documentaries, the most recent being: “Yasmina & Mohammed”, “Jenny Bel’Air”, “La tête à l’envers” and “Pourquoi marcher quand on peut rouler?”. She is also a photographer.

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LONE SAMARITAN

50 minutes, 2010
Director : Barak HEYMANN (Israel)
Production : Heymann Brothers Films (Israel)

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The Samaritans, a tiny religious sect, are disappearing. They remain extremely attached to their rules against assimilation: if anyone leaves the community, they and their family are banished forever.
The Israeli actress Sophie Tzedaka was part of this group, but she and her three sisters have all become Jewish. They were banished from the group, as was their father. “Lone Samaritan” is a touching journey into the life of a father and his daughter, it explores universal issues of faith and modernity, the role of women in religion, and the individual’s right to forge his or her own identity.

Barak HEYMANN is director, script-writer and producer. He has made the following films: “End of the Story” (2012), “Lone Samaritan” (2010), “Dancing Alfonso” (2007), “Debut” (2007), “Bridge over the Wadi” (2006) and “My Village” (2005).

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IN SEARCH OF OIL AND SAND

58 minutes, 2012
Director : Wael OMAR and Philippe DIB (Egypt)
Production : Middle West Films (Egypt)

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Fiction meets reality: members of the Egyptian royal family made a film about themselves just a few weeks before the coup that ousted them from power. This 16mm footage shot in 1952 not only predicts their fate, but also – unwittingly – records the last days of a dynasty.

Wael OMAR SAYED EL AHL lives in Cairo. He has worked in film and television for eight years. He has produced several documentaries which have been shown on BBC Storyville, Al Arabiya, CMN, and ITVS. In 2008 he created his own production company, Middle West Films.

Philippe DIB
Philippe L. DIB is a film director/producer of Franco-Lebanese origin residing in Cairo. In 1996 he co-wrote and directed his feature debut, “Welcome Says The Angel”, filmed during the outbreak of violence following the Rodney King case in L.A.
As recently as 2006 he directed the award-winning documentary “El Tanbura”.
He also features in the 2012 documentary “½ revolution” where he shot a third of the footage and features as a character, musician and associate producer.

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A HOUSE FOR BERNARDA ALBA

52 minutes, 2011
Director : Lidia PERALTA GARCIA (Spain)
Production : Producciones Damira (Spain)

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Eight gypsy women living in El Vacie, a Seville slum, have become very popular in Spain after appearing in Federico García Lorca’s play “The House of Bernarda Alba”. But have their lives changed? What path led them from being marginalized to popularity? This documentary is a rare story of adventure and personal development.

Lidia PERALTA GARCIA was born in Grenada (Spain) in 1970. She studied translation and interpreting, then spent several years travelling in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. In 2000 she completed a journalism course in Malaga, then she wrote a doctoral thesis on documentary films. Since 2001 she has been both editor and presenter of “Tesis”, a Canal 2 Andalucía programme about socio-cultural issues. As an independent film-maker she has made the following documentaries “Sudan, by the way” (2009); “The Caravan of the Manuscripts from Al-andalus” and “Ancient Megastructures: the Alhambra” (2007); “When the Moors ruled in Spain” (2006); “Alandalus in the mirror” (2005); and “Berbers of the High Atlas” (2003).

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TROUFIONS

TROUFIONS
56 minutes, 2012
Director : Thierry DEMAIZIERE and Alban TEURLAI (France)
Production : Falabracks, France Télévisions (France)

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50 years after signing the Evian Accord in March 1962, the documentary “Troufions” (Squaddies) talks to 5 ordinary French soldiers who fought in Algeria as simple conscripts. Today these men are in the 70’s. For all these years they have stubbornly said nothing, they have told their families, their wives or their children nothing. Before it is too late they decided to speak out, for the first time. The film releases these men from their silence, harvesting the raw but authentic accounts of their secret sufferings and hidden wounds. These men-memories are farmers, workers or civil servants, at the time they were only 20 and simple squaddies.

Thierry DEMAIZIERE is an author and film-director. From 1985 to 1997, he was a senior reporter for radio RTL where he worked until 2011.

Alban TEURLAI is an author, film-director and editor. Together they have made the documentaries “Troufions” (2012, 52′), “Ces Messieurs Dames” (2010, 52′), “Thuram” (2009, 80′), “Robert Luchini dit Fabrice” (2009, 52′), “Lagerfeld, un roi seul” (2008, 52′), “Lost in Vegas” (2007, 60′) and “L’ordre des choses” (2003, 52′).

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TINGHIR-JERUSALEM, Les Echos du Mellah

TINGHIR-JERUSALEM, Les Échos du Mellah
86 minutes, 2011
Director : Kamal HACHKAR (France / Morocco)
Production : Les Films d’Un Jour (France)

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The story of an exile, “Tinghir Jérusalem, les echos du Mellah” is about what happened to a Jewish community which left the Berber village of Tinghir (Morocco) in the 1950’s and 60’s. Kamal Hachkar, born in Tinghir, takes us to the crossroads of the two cultures, with songs, voices and stories of this dual identity shared between Jews and Muslims.

Kamal HACHKAR is a young French-Moroccan of Berber origin and a Muslim. Born in Tinghir, he left Morocco at the age of six months with his mother to join his father, who had immigrated to France in 1968. After studying history at the Sorbonne, he became a teacher. Interested in the Jewish culture and the Judaeo Moroccan heritage, he wanted to discover this culture in Israel and Morocco. Learning Hebrew, he organized cultural evenings with Jewish and Arab poets in Paris. He has participated in debates connecting Israeli and Palestinian students, making them think about what identity and the relationship to clan or tribe really mean.

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