Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival

aKasha
Friday, September 27 at 11:00am & Sunday, September 29 at 5:45pm
Director: hajooj kuka | Fiction Feature | Sudan, South Africa, Qatar, Germany | 2018

Adnan is a Sudanese revolutionary who is considered a war hero. His love for his AK-47 rifle is equalled only by his feelings for Lina, his long-suffering sweetheart. When Adnan is late to return to his military unit after...

Bezness As Usual
Friday, September 27 at 3:00pm
Director: Alex Pitstra | Documentary | Netherlands, Tunisia | 2016

Filmmaker Alex Pitstra has lived his life pulled between cultures. Raised in Holland by his mother, Anneke, he longed to know more about Mohsen, his absent Tunisian father...

Dachra
Saturday, September 28 at 9:30pm
Director: Abdelhamid Bouchnak | Fiction | Tunisia | 2018

Set against the backdrop of contemporary Tunisia, Dachra revolves around Yasmin, a journalism student, and her two classmates. They set out on a university assignment to solve the cold case of Mongia, a woman found mutilated twenty-five years ago...

Dreamaway
Friday, September 27 at 9:15pm
Director: Marouan Omara, Johanna Domke | Documentary | Egypt | 2018

Dreamaway follows a group of young workers in a luxury hotel compound, holding onto the town despite the lack of tourists. Returning home is not an option, as they have absorbed the liberal lifestyle and experienced the difficulty of fitting...

Erased,__Ascent of the Invisible
Saturday, September 28 at 5:45pm
Director: Ghassan Halwani | Documentary | Lebanon | 2018

Thirty-five years ago, I witnessed the kidnapping of a man I know. He has disappeared since. Ten years ago, I caught a glimpse of his face while walking in the street, but I wasn’t sure it was...

EXT. Night
Sunday, September 29 at 7:40pm
Director: Ahmad Abdalla | Fiction | Egypt | 2018

Marginalized film director Moe spends an unplanned evening with two companions, taxi driver Mustafa and prostitute Toutou, who live about a metro stop away from him, yet who seem socioeconomic worlds apart from the career frustrated director.

Hamada
Saturday, September 28 at 2:10pm
Director: Eloy Domínguez Serén | Documentary | Western Sahara | 2018

A minefield and the world’s second largest military wall separate Sidahmed, Zaara, and Taher from their homeland that they only know from their parents’ stories. They are Sahrawis, one of the world’s most forgotten people...

It Must Be Heaven
Thursday, September 26 at 7:00pm & Saturday, September 28 at 7:30pm
Director: Elia Suleiman | Fiction | Palestine, France, USA | 2019

ES escapes from Palestine seeking an alternative homeland, only to find that Palestine is trailing behind him. The promise of a new life turns into a comedy of errors: however far he travels, from Paris to New York, something always...

Local(ish): 5 Short Films + Discussions With Filmmakers
Saturday, September 28 at 4:00pm
Shorts Program

From the sweet and personal to the fascinatingly bizarre, these 5 films from local and regional filmmakers reveal a spectrum of stories and very different ways of telling them...

Rosalind Nashashibi Retrospective
Sunday, September 29 at 11:00am
Director: Rosalind Nashashibi | Experimental | Palestine, UK, Egypt

A selection of five beautiful experimental films from Palestinian English artist Rosalind Nashashibi. Described as having “the depth and precision of a poet. Her images, and the ideas they carry...

Sisters, Mothers, Friends, Lovers: A Collection of Shorts
Sunday, September 29 at 12:30pm
Shorts Program | Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, USA, Egypt, Lebanon

Six short films that dive into the hearts of our deepest relationships.

Sudanese Shorts
Saturday, September 28 at 11:00am
Shorts Program | Sudan, Yemen

During the late ’70s and early ’80s, a group of filmmakers at the Sudanese Department of Culture issued a periodical named Cinema. In April 1989, they founded the Sudanese Film Group...

Tiny Souls
Saturday, September 28 at 12:25pm
Director: Dina Naser | Documentary | Syria, Jordan | 2019

Marwa, her mother, and her siblings are stranded in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp after escaping war in Syria in 2012. Marwa is nine. Her concerns revolve around school, and her interests around playtime. Four months into camp life, Marwa is...

Wajd - Songs of Separation
Sunday, September 29 at 3:55pm
Director: Amar Chebib | Documentary | Syria, Turkey | 2018

Inspired by the traditional music of Syria, director Amar Chebib traveled to Aleppo in 2010. Six months later, the revolution began. Moved by the harrowing experiences of the friends he made, Wajd shares the stories of three musicians turned refugees...

Weldi (Dear Son)
Friday, September 27 at 5:00pm
Director: Mohamed Ben Attia | Fiction | Tunisia | 2018

Riadh is about to retire from his work as a forklift operator at the port of Tunis. The life he shares with his wife Nazli revolves around their only son Sami, who is preparing for his high school...

Western Arabs
Friday, September 27 at 7:00pm
Director: Omar Shargawi | Documentary | Palestine, Denmark | 2019

Western Arabs is a brutally intimate portrait that follows Omar Shargawi’s Danish Palestinian family over twelve years. Focusing on his troubled relationship with his father, Munir—who opens himself up to intense scrutiny—Omar dives deeply into the...

When Arabs Danced
Sunday, September 29 at 2:10pm
Director: Jawad Rhalib | Documentary | Arabic, French, Dutch, English | 2018

This new work by director Jawad Rhalib shines a light on aspects of Arab culture that western and Middle Eastern mainstream media alike seem to have forgotten: its love for dance, music, literature, philosophy, and science.

Yara
Friday, September 27 at 1:00pm
Director: Abbas Fahdel | Fiction | Lebanon, Iraq, France | 2018

Yara lives alone with her grandmother in an isolated valley, most of whose inhabitants have died or emigrated abroad. One day, Yara meets a young stranger.

SPONSORS

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.