Taking place in the iconic art-deco Radio Theatre at BBC’s Broadcasting House in central London until the 27th of March, the BBC Arabic Film Festival 2019 is on. Presenting the best independent films and documentaries from emerging to multi-award winning directors from across the Arabic world, this year focusing on women, such a broad and powerful topic in today’s zeitgeist.
Image credit: “Amal” screens 25 March 7:30pm Feature-length documentary by Mohamed Siam. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the script writer and film consultant, Georgina Van Wellie.
The festival brings together a unique program about the changing Arab world, in order to inspire reflection and offer entertainment to the widest possible audience.
On Friday 22nd was the opening night of the festival, an evening of presentations of award-winning films such as “The Town the Men Left” (Hannan Youssef Abdulla, 2017), last year’s winner in the Short Documentary category, and “Silence” (Farnoosh Samadi and Ali Asgari, 2016), winner in the Short Film category in 2018.
The first documentary, a 22 minute short offers a testimony of Nubian women living in the village of Aswan (Egypt), “The Town the Men Left”, here the women, are forced into married at a very young age against their will, but they face each day with determination as they struggle to sustain their families in a patriarchal society that constantly threatens them: neither married nor divorced but abandoned, they keep defending their rights and their children’s.
“Silence” is a 14 minute film that portraits the silent struggles suffered by many refugees after they arrive in Europe, dealing with the complications of language and uncertainty of place, scenes hit home: a Kurdish girl having to translate a doctor’s serious diagnosis to her mother.
The BBC Arabic Film Festival each year gives the Young Journalist Award to encourage emerging journalists and filmmakers to pursue their career by capturing the image and voice of the Middle East. Ali Alibrahim was the 2018 Young Journalist Award winner, he is an independent journalist and filmmaker from Syria. After winning last year’s prize with his short documentary “One Day in Aleppo”, he has continued investigating the on-going crisis in Syria: in 2020 he will release his new documentary project “Anonymous Syria”.
Don’t miss it!!
You have the opportunity to benefit from FREE tickets to exclusive presentations, projections of documentaries and shortfilms, discussions, comedy screenings and live music shows. Immerse yourself in the Arabic world and its many faces in the heart of one of the Arabic world at the BBC Radio Theatre Broadcasting House.
Register for free tickets, click here. To view the full program/ more info, click here.
Where: BBC Broadcasting House, 30-34 Langham St, Marylebone, London W1W 7AW
