Programmed to accompany the exhibition Anguish and Enthusiasm, the UK’s Arab Film Festival presents a specially curated season of North African films, with a special focus on Egypt.
The festival includes new cinema that has emerged out of what could arguably be considered a revolutionary moment, the 2011/2 Arab uprisings. Whether inspired directly or indirectly, these films evoke the bubbling anguish that gives rise to dissidence and civil unrest.
Produced directly after or preceding the uprisings, these films are allegorical, poetic, tender, visceral, and at times, violent. This selection seeks to open up questions about the role that cinema can play for a society consistently struggling with how it should represent itself.
Previously in this season
Cinema
Winter of Discontent
The events that launched the Egyptian revolution of 2011 didn’t begin out of the blue on January 25, a fact that director Ibrahim El Batout…
Cinema
In the Shadow of a Man
In the wake of the Egyptian revolution, four women speak of their fight for the future and what it means to be a woman in…
Cinema
Coming Forth By Day
Award-winning Egyptian filmmaker Hala Lofty’s feature debut is a reflection on how people create their own prisons, told through the everyday story of two women…
Cinema
Deep State
Deep State is new film by Karen Mirza and Brad Butler that has been scripted in collaboration with author China Miéville and commissioned by Film…
event
Deep State plus director Q&A
We are pleased to welcome director Karen Mirza for Q&A following our screening of Deep State.