20th Arab Film Festival

Friday, September 25 at 4:00 PM

The feature documentary My Father and Qaddafi will be preceded by the short film Attempting to Remember My Father's Face.

ABOUT THE FILMS

MY FATHER QADDAFI

Dir. Jihan K • USA, Libya • 2025 • English, Arabic, French • 88 min
When director Jihan was six years old, her father, Mansur Rashid Kikhia, flew to Cairo and never returned. For many, Kikhia was a rising star who could have been the next leader of Libya, however, in 1993 he disappeared from his hotel in Egypt.

Jihan’s mother, Baha Al Omary, a strong-willed Syrian-American artist, began searching for him, launching the family into an international political maze. Her mission to find justice brought her to the Libyan desert in the middle of the night, face to face with Qaddafi to negotiate her husband’s release. My Father and Qaddafi takes the audience on a raw and reflective journey as Jihan pieces together memories of a father she barely remembers while discovering the troubled history and politics of Libya. Her journey starts from fading personal memories and leads to encounters with family members, her father’s peers, and historical archival footage.

FILMMAKER BIO

Jihan K was born in exile and raised in Paris while her father, a Libyan human rights lawyer, was the peaceful opposition leader to Qaddafi’s regime. After her father disappeared from Cairo, her family lived between the United States and France, while her mother, a Syrian artist, fought for justice in an international campaign. Jihan received her BA in international and comparative politics with a concentration in human rights, philosophy, and international law and her MA in art education and storytelling.

ATTEMPTING TO REMEMBER MY FATHER'S FACE

Dir. Tariq Abdalla • Egypt • 2025 • Arabic • 15 min
While my father’s face is fading from my memory, I find a videotape that might have the only footage of him. I attempt to digitize the video while revisiting childhood memories and my relationship with my mother. By discovering that my parents are “aliens” and their history is not what I imagined, the film offers a liberatory lesson: We are not beholden to the ghosts of our lineage.

FILMMAKER BIOS

Tariq Abdalla is a film director, editor, and programmer whose films have screened internationally, earning awards and grant recognition at multiple festivals including Tripoli Film Festival, Gabes Cinema Fen, and Manassat Film Festival. He has experience in film programming, education, and coordination including roles with El-Gouna Film Festival ESLSCA University and El-Nahda Jesuit Cairo.

PRESENTED BY MIZNA

Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than 25 years, Mizna has been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.