SCREENINGS//عروض

Aesthetics of the Absurd – Screening, Panel & Workshop
Event Details
Screening & Panel
March 1, 2023
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
CFMDC, 1411 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON M6H 4C7
Join us for a screening of “Life on the CAPS”, followed by a talk with Nehal El-Hadi.
Screening:
Life on the CAPS
Country: Morocco
Director: Meriem Bennani
Length: 76 mins
Synopsis: Life on the CAPS is a trilogy of short film by Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani. Set in a supernatural, dystopian future, Life on the CAPS (short for “capsule”) features a fictional island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. In the world of the CAPS, teleportation has replaced air travel, and displaced populations utilize this mode of transportation to cross oceans and borders.
Panel:
Incorporating multi-media and digital techniques into diasporic narratives
This post-screening discussion will engage viewers in a theoretical and practical discussion of incorporating multi-media and digital techniques into diasporic narratives.

Speaker:
Nehal El-Hadi, Writer, Researcher, Editor

Nehal El-Hadi investigates the relationships between the body (racialised, gendered), place (urban, virtual), and technology (internet, health).

She completed a Ph.D. in Planning at the University of Toronto, where her research examined the relationships between user-generated content and everyday public urban life.

As a scholar, her hybrid digital/material research methods are informed by her training and experience as a science and environmental journalist.

Nehal advocates for the responsible, accountable, and ethical treatment of user-generated content in the fields of journalism, planning, and healthcare.

Her writing has appeared in academic journals, general scholarship publications, literary magazines, and several anthologies and edited collections.

Nehal is the Science+Technology Editor at The Conversation Canada, an academic news site, and Editor-in-Chief of Studio Magazine, a biannual print publication dedicated to contemporary Canadian craft and design. She currently holds a residency at Toronto’s Theatre Centre, where she is developing a live arts event that explores surveillance, privacy, and consent.

Nehal sits on the Board of Directors of FiXT POINT Arts & Media and Provocation Ideas Festival. She is a member of the Digital Communities Advisory Panel at the Centre for Free Expression. She was previously a Visiting Scholar at the City Institute at York University.
Workshop
March 5, 2023
2:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST
LIFT, 1137 Dupont St, Toronto, ON M6H 2A3
Workshop:
Projection Mapping Workshop
Join Ilze Briede [a.k.a. Kavi] for a Video Projection Mapping Workshop. Learn the basics of video projection mapping in this introductory workshop. With Resolume, you can manipulate and mix videos in real-time, create complex and dynamic compositions from scratch using built-in effects and, most importantly, how to map your video output on site-specific objects, also known as Video Projection Mapping

No previous experience with projection mapping is required.

Facilitator:
Ilze Briede [a.k.a. Kavi]

Ilze Briede [a.k.a. Kavi] is a Latvian/Canadian artist and researcher working across multiple disciplines, including visual art, interactive installation and live performance. Her creative practice and academic research encompass working with live data sets and designing systems to turn data into visceral experiences. An example would be harnessing data from the forest about trees and the environment or the human body through bio-physiological sensing and translating them into immersive narratives. Kavi sees data as a living material that can express its essence and inner truth through creative, technological and artistic interventions. Sometimes, it looks too abstract for the human mind’s eye; however, she believes that the more we are exposed to weird and unusual, the more we stretch our cognitive abilities to embrace the world at large. She is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Computational Art at York University.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: Foragers//اليد الخضراء
Event Details
May 20, 2023
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Join us for a screening of “Foragers”.
Foragers//اليد الخضراء
Director: Jumana Manna
Length: 64 mins
Synopsis: Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humour and a meditative pace.  Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee, and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary, and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.
Presented in partnership with the Provocations Ideas Festival and the Mosaic Institute.

Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: Hepta: The Last Lecture//هيبتا: المحاضرة الأخيرة
Event Details
February 1, 2018
6:30 PM – 10:00 PM EST
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Join us for screenings of “Hepta: The Last Lecture”.
Hepta: The Last Lecture//هيبتا: المحاضرة الأخيرة
Country: Egypt
Director: Hady El Bagory
Length: 112 mins
Synopsis: Dr. Shukri Mokhtar is a renowned social psychology specialist, best known for his ability to answer the simplest questions, who decides to give one last lecture about the very simple question: how do we love?
Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: Razzia//غزية – Ave Maria//السلام عليك يا مريم
Event Details
March 30, 2019 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Join us for screenings of “Razzia” and “Ava Maria”.
Razzia//غزية
Country: Morocco
Director: Nabil Ayouch
Length: 119 mins
Synopsis: Casablanca: vibrant and rough, inviting yet unforgiving. Four souls in search of truth, thirty years after a passionate teacher in the Atlas Mountains was put to silence… Through the echo of his shattered dreams, the disillusions of the four characters embody the sparks that will light the city in flames.
This film is not suitable for children.
Ave Maria//السلام عليك يا مريم
Country: Palestine, France, Germany
Director: Basil Khalil
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: The silent routine of 5 nuns living in the West Bank wilderness is disturbed when an Israeli settler family’s car breaks down right outside the convent just as the Sabbath comes into effect.
Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: Solitaire//محبس
Event Details
June 16, 2018
6:30 PM – 9:30 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Join us for a screening of “Solitaire”.
Solitaire//محبس
Country: Lebanon
Director: Sophie Boutros
Length: 92 mins
Synopsis: Therese, the mayor’s wife in a Lebanese village, joyfully prepares for an overnight visit of her daughter’s suitor and his parents. She excitedly shares the happy news of the engagement with pictures of her beloved brother who was killed by a Syrian bomb 20 years ago and is still bizarrely present in every corner of her house. Only when the long-awaited guests are at her doorstep, she discovers they are Syrian; this engagement will only happen over Therese’s dead body!
Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: The Day I Lost My Shadow//يوم أضعت ظلي – Rupture//رابتشير
Event Details
June 15, 2019
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Join us for screenings of “The Day I Lost My Shadow” and “Rupture”.
The Day I Lost My Shadow//يوم أضعت ظلي
Director: Soudade Kaadan
Length: 90 mins
Synopsis: As winter hits hard in Syria, all Sana wants is to cook a hot meal for her son. When a seemingly simple errand search for gas goes awry, Sana is dragged deeper into the conflict, where people lose their shadows.
This film is not suitable for children.
Rupture//رابتشير
Country: Canada, Jordan
Director: Yassmina Karajah
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: Rupture follows the journey of four Arab teens on their quest to find a public pool in their new city on a hot summer’s day. Introducing a cast of first time actors and war survivors who channel their personal experiences of loss and new beginnings through a fictional narrative.
Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: The Journey//الرحلة – Juha the Whale
Event Details
October 26, 2019
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Join us for screenings of “The Journey” and “Juha the Whale”.
The Journey//الرحلة
Country: Iraq
Director: Mohamed Al-Daradji
Length: 82 mins
Synopsis: Sara enters Baghdad station with sinister intentions for its reopening ceremony. As she braces to commit an unthinkable act, her plans are drastically altered by an unwanted and awkward encounter with Salam, a self-assured and flirtatious salesman.
This film is not suitable for children.
Juha the Whale
Country: Canada
Director: Karam Masri
Synopsis: Juha the Whale is a short coming-of-age fiction film that explores the isolation a refugee mother and her young daughter face as they await the status of their claimant hearing in Toronto, Canada.
Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: The Poetess//الشاعرة – Brotherhood//اخوان
Event Details
January 26, 2019
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Join us for screenings of “The Poetess” and “Brotherhood”.
The Poetess//الشاعرة
Country: Germany
Director: Stefanie Brockhaus & Andreas Wolff
Length: 89 mins
Synopsis: Imagine a European TV channel attracting millions of viewers across countries with poetry readings. This is exactly what Abu Dhabi TV has managed to do for a decade with the show Million’s Poet. After accusing extremists on stage, Hissa Hilal, a Saudi woman, who was shrouded in an abaya – a black cloak – and a niqab, received death threats. And the attention of the West. The German filmmaker Stefanie Brockhaus saw a picture of her in the New York Times and travelled with Andy Wolff to Abu Dhabi a few days later to accompany Hilal at the finals of Million’s Poet.
Brotherhood//اخوان
Country: Canada, Tunisia, Qatar, Sweden
Director: Meryam Joobeur
Length: 25 mins
Synopsis: Mohamed is deeply shaken and suspicious when his estranged eldest son returns home to rural Tunisia with a mysterious young wife in tow. Every moment in Meryam Joobeur’s wrenching drama is infused with the emotional complexities of a family reunion, and the consequences of past wounds and misunderstanding.
Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
CINEMA NIGHTS//ليالي السينما: The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni//اختفاءات سعاد حسني الثلاثة
Event Details
November 14, 2020 – November 15, 2020
Virtual
Join us for a screening of “The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni”.
The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni//اختفاءات سعاد حسني الثلاثة
Country: Lebanon, France
Director: Rania Stephan
Length: 70 mins
Synopsis: The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni is a rapturous elegy to a rich and versatile era of film production in Egypt which has lapsed today, through the work of one of its most revered actress and star: Soad Hosni, who from the early 1960 into the 90s, embodied the modern Arab woman in her complexity and paradoxes.
Supported by Toronto Arts Council.
Mokhtabar//مختبر: Short Film Screenings + Panel on “Place Attachment”
July 11, 2020
Virtual
Join us for a screening of Short Films followed by a panel on “Place Attachment”.
Screenings:
Fragments
Country: Tunisia
Director: Ghassen Chraifa
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: Life comes as a continuous race against time where everything is programmed in advance. Everything is tied up in a defined chronological order and we are just running to catch up. What would happen if we decide to take a break, if we feel how the present moment goes by?
Tawargit
Country: Morocco
Director: Karim Barka
Length: 3 mins
Synopsis: A video take of a shadow of young fisherman from the Atlantic coast as a creature from another world. In seeing his shadow in the water, he imagines himself as a fish traveling through water to be wherever he wants.
Un Passage entre Deux Points
Country: Tunisia
Director: Lamis Souliman
Length: 10 mins
Synopsis: In a confrontation structure between emotional and spatial alienation, out of a party full with tipsy attendees, an alienated girl fleeing through a path hidden between two stopped points in ‘Time’. She takes her journey moving on the very fine line between the outer reality and a parallel universe. Through the mental sounds and expressive movements of a girl who travels in a circular path between the real world and the self-realm, the film embodies images of optional and compulsory isolation within the life of an expatriate person, in deconstructing for the meanings of fulfilled existence and residential affiliation
All Come From Dust//من طين
Country: Tunisia
Director: Younes Ben Slimane
Length: 9 mins
Synopsis: A loop of edgeless bend. You were its doom, he was its bloom. You were its tomb, he was its womb. For Heaven and Hell, were words made of fum.
April 21//٢١ نيسان
Country: Syria
Director: Houssam Jlelati
Length: 3 mins
Synopsis: During the ongoing war in Syria, and the outbreak of coronavirus disease which resulted in a global quarantine, there are some ideas to get rid of all this noise.
Summer 2006
Country: Czech Republic
Director: Farah Abou Kharroub
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Farah filmed a bomb as it hit Beirut’s airport. Her father filmed the years of fighting in Lebanon every day as a war reporter. Images of the city at war are mixed with images of household peace from Farah’s childhood. This collage, created from footage shot by father and daughter, reveals the unbearable length of a conflict that affected two generations.
Panel:
Place Attachment
Watch

Our awareness of a surrounding environment, context or space, impacts our idea of identity as individuals, which we translate into materiality. Living within the parameters of a built environment over a stretch of time, we start to observe details and nuances that may have never otherwise caught our attention.

Moderators:
Fatma Hendawy

Fatma Hendawy Yehia is an Egyptian-Canadian curator, based in Toronto since 2017. Yehia graduated in 2020 from the Master of Visual Studies Curatorial program at university of Toronto. Since 2008, Yehia held different positions at the New Library of Alexandria including Head of Permanent Exhibitions (2010-12). She was the Assistant Curator at the AGYU, Toronto (2021-22). She was Guest Curator at Images Festival 2022, and currently she works as Assistant Archivist at the Art Museum, University of Toronto. Yehia participated in curatorial workshops (including Tate Intensive 2017), residencies (ProHelvetia and ZKU/Berlin) and curated several projects in Egypt, UK, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Canada. Her curatorial practice focuses on investigating censored archives, questioning inaccessible histories, and navigating militarised spaces.
Lamis Haggag

Lamis Haggag is an Egyptian multimedia artist, living and working between Cairo and Toronto. She received her MFA from The University of Calgary in 2013 and her BFA from Helwan University, Cairo in 2008. She participated in exhibitions and residencies in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, St. Thomas Ontario, Cairo, Beijing, Dakar, Lagos, Berlin, Incheon and Aswan.

In addition to her art practice, Haggag is an art instructor, installer and proposal writer. She received various grants and scholarships in Canada from CCA, TAC, OAC, AFA, Interaccess Artist-run Center and the University of Calgary. Haggag is also the recipient of awards and grants from the Goethe Institute in Lagos, the Goethe Institute in Cairo, Incheon Foundation for Arts and Culture (IFAC) in Incheon, Al Mawred Al Thaqafy for the Arab region, Kamel Lazaar Foundation in Tunisia and various awards from the Ministry of culture in Egypt.
Speakers:
May Telmissany, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa

May Telmissany is Associate professor of Cinema and Arabic Studies in the Department of Communication, University of Ottawa. She is the former Director of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and founder of the Arab Canadian Studies Research Group (ACANS). She is an established novelist and columnist as well as the author of numerous academic books including La Hara dans le Cinéma Egyptien. Popular neighborhood and national identity, and Counterpoints. Edward Said’s Legacy. Her scholarly articles are published in English, French and Arabic in France, the UK, the USA, Canada, and Egypt.

Telmissany’s research spans a variety of topics in media and film theories including the representation of the popular neighborhood in cinema, the emergence of minor cinemas and women transnational filmmaking, the political contributions of the diasporic women intellectuals during and after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, and the impact of SVOD platforms on Arab countries and the Francophonie.

As a novelist, she published four novels and four short stories collections many of which were translated into several languages.

Telmissany won two literary awards, in Egypt and in France, and was recently awarded the prestigious medal of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic, in recognition of her literary and academic achievements.
Chantal Partamian, Filmmaker

Chantal Partamian is a filmmaker and archivist primarily focused on working with super 8mm and found footage. Partamian’s films have been screened and awarded at numerous festivals and are distributed by Vidéographe, Groupe intervention Vidéo (GIV), and the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center.

In her capacity as an archivist, she dedicates herself to preserving and restoring reels from the Mediterranean region while conducting research on archival practices in conflict areas. Her written works are predominantly featured in the revue Hors-Champs.
Younes Ben Slimane, Filmmaker

Younes Ben Slimane is a tunisian artist and filmmaker.

His architectural background has a major influence on his approach as an artist. Working through film, video, photography, drawing and installation, he establishes a permanent dialogue between architecture and visual arts, where different mediums coexist and reflect each other potentialities and limitations.

Younes completed post-graduates studies at Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains (FR) . His work has been exhibited at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Institut du monde arabe in Paris (FR), at the Mucem in Marseille (FR), at the Selma Feriani Gallery in Sidi Bou Saïd (TN), and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje (MK).

His films have been selected in international festivals such as Locarno Film Festival (CH) and CPH:DOX (DK). He has received the Tanit d’or at the Carthage Film Festival (TN) and the Studio Collector Prize (FR).
Co-presented with La Boite
Screening “A Thousand Landscapes”
Event Details
April 12, 2025
11:30 AM EDT
Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5S 1J5
A Thousand Landscapes, A Thousand Bodies is a two-fold film program that explores the tension between the collective and the individual by looking at how landscapes and bodies interact with each other. Conceived as a diptych, these two programs bypass the difference of scale between the body and the landscape to take interest in the trajectories of contamination that puts these two entities in constant relation and negotiation.

In this first program, the landscape acts as both a witness and an active participant in the layering of memory, history, and time. It emerges as a repository for individual and collective stories. A Thousand Landscapes brings together works focused on terrains where narratives collide and unsettling experiences leave their imprint.
Co-presented with Images Festival, Plant In Focus and re:assemblage collective

Screenings:
Before Seriana
Country: Algeria, Canada
Director: Samy Benammar
Length: 19 mins
Synopsis: Unveiling the Aurès region of Algeria, this film contrasts rugged mountains with a realm imagined from colonial narratives. “Mom, you brought me back to our homeland. All I know about these harsh landscapes I learned from books written by the hand that burned these mountains. I try to undo the colonial myths engraved into my memory, but the hills escape my gaze. Do you think I, too, have become the white djinn spoken of by the legends surrounding our martyrs?”
Bloom
Country: Spain
Director: Helena Girón, Samuel M. Delgado
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: The mythical Isla de San Borondón (St. Brendan’s Isle) appears and disappears. Throughout history it has been placed near the Canary Islands on maps. The legend of the island of San Borondón became so pervasive that expeditions were organized to discover and conquer it for three hundred years. After centuries of oblivion, it has finally been found.
Le Disque De Poussière
Country: France
Director: Charline Dally
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: Charline Dally invites viewers to investigate meteorite particles to identify crater impacts, only to discover that by merely observing this miniscule landscape, we are erasing all the evidence it contains that could tell us its story
Radius Catastrophe
Country: Lebanon
Director: Jad Youssef
Length: 39 mins
Synopsis: A semi-fictional essay film, narrated from the perspective of an alien agent sent to earth to investigate the aftermath of a complex murder event.
Screening “Antigone”
Event Details
April 16, 2025
6:30 PM EDT
Carlton Cinema, 20 Carlton Street, Toronto, ON, M5B 2H5
Antigone is a 16-year-old girl who came to Canada from Algeria as a child with some of her family. While she excels at school, her two brothers have turned to crime. When one ends up in jail and is threatened with deportation, she comes up with a plan to have him released, which gets her into trouble.

A modern adaptation of the Greek tragedy, in which a young woman with an indestructible love of family and justice takes on the authorities. This classic, universal struggle is primarily fought out on social media. The warm solidarity in the viral world, depicted by video-like impressions, contrasts markedly with the system’s cold rules. Antigone is a beacon of hope, who with her independent character commands respect and starts a movement in which humanity trumps fear and indifference.
Co-presented with National Canadian Film Day and Reel Canada.

Screenings:
Antigone
Country: Canada
Director: Sophie Deraspe
Length: 109 mins
Synopsis: Antigone, is a 16-year-old girl who came to Canada from Algeria, as a child. While she excels at school, her two brothers have turned to crime. When one ends up in jail and is threatened with deportation, she comes up with a dangerous plan to have him released. “Antigone” is a modern adaptation of the Greek tragedy, in which a young woman with an indestructible love of family and justice takes on the authorities.
Screening “Brides”
Event Details
April 12, 2025
2:00 PM EDT
TIFF Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5
Sometimes, the journey matters more than where it leads. Fuelled by larger-than-life dreams, best friends Doe and Muna run away from their troubled UK homes, drawn into the promise of a new life in Syria. At just 15, they find the journey deeply transformative — marked by brutal realities, rising doubts, encounters that challenge their beliefs, and a newfound sense of freedom.

Acclaimed theatre director Nadia Fall’s bold feature debut is as courageous as its protagonists; a visceral coming-of-age exploration of girlhood, religion, and the immutable power of friendship. Told through Suhayla El-Bushra’s compassionate and fearless writing, Brides humanizes its leads, capturing the lighthearted moments of their friendship among the tragic weight of their choices. Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar’s brilliant performances pull us in deep: Doe is introspective and devout with quiet struggles that unfold through kaleidoscope flashbacks, while Muna’s bold defiance powers their journey. A “Bad Girls” M.I.A. needle drop injects a sense of rebellion, an echo of their teenage innocence, clouded by the danger of their decisions.

Brides forces you out of your comfort zone, entangling questions of identity and faith. Raw, thought-provoking, and deeply humanizing, it is sure to spark ever-urgent conversations. – RONI HAREL HABER, TIFF Next Wave Committee

Content advisory: mature themes, violence, frightening scenes
Toronto Arab Film is a Community Partner to Next Wave Film Festival.
Screenings:
Brides
Country: United Kingdom, Italy
Director: Nadia Fall
Length: 92 mins
Synopsis: Antigone, is a 16-year-old girl who came to Canada from Algeria, as a child. While she excels at school, her two brothers have turned to crime. When one ends up in jail and is threatened with deportation, she comes up with a dangerous plan to have him released. “Antigone” is a modern adaptation of the Greek tragedy, in which a young woman with an indestructible love of family and justice takes on the authorities.
Screening “Iraq’s Invisible Beauty//جمال العراق الخفي”
Event Details
December 1, 2024
4:00 PM EST
Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5S 1J5
Latif Al Ani photographed Iraq for 30 years before multiple wars arose. Now he travels through his devastated country in search of the people and places he photographed at the time, sharing his pictures with Iraqis who today cannot imagine that the world in the photographs was real.
Co-presented with Muslim International Film Festival
Screenings:
“Iraq’s Invisible Beauty//جمال العراق الخفي”
Country: Belgium, France, Iraq
Director: Sahim Omar Kalifa, Jurgen Buedts
Length: 87 mins
Synopsis: Latif Al Ani photographed Iraq for 30 years before multiple wars arose. At the age of 86, he travels through his devastated country in search of the people and places he photographed at the time, sharing his pictures with Iraqis who today cannot imagine that the world in the photographs was real.
Screening “The Skates//Les Patins”
Event Details
December 8, 2024
2:30 PM EDT
Paradise Theatre, 1006 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, M6H 1M2
Directed by Halima Ouardiri, The Skates will be showing at the Paradise Theatre on Sunday, December 8th as part of the The Uncomfort Zone short films screening.
Co-presented with Breakthroughs Film Festival.
Screenings:
The Skates//Les Patins
Country: Canada
Director: Halima Ouardiri
Length: 13 mins
Synopsis: Mina loves to skate. Today, her father, recently divorced from her mother, accompanies her to her first figure skating lesson. An ordinary day if something hadn’t happened to the skates.
Screening “The Strangers’ Case”
Event Details
November 30, 2024
6:20 PM EST
Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5S 1J5
Tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo, starting a chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries
Co-presented with Muslim International Film Festival
Screenings:
The Strangers’ Case
Country: Jordan
Director: Brandt Andersen
Length: 103 mins
Synopsis: Tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo, starting a chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries.
Screening “To A Land Unknown”
Event Details
November 30, 2024
4:20 PM EST
Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5S 1J5
After fleeing a camp in Lebanon, two Palestinian cousins are stranded in Athens, living in an underground limbo. Desperately seeking a way to reach Germany, they find themselves caught in an uncontrollable spiral.
Co-presented with Muslim International Film Festival
Screenings:
To A Land Unknown
Country: Palestine, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
Director: Mehdi Fleifel
Length: 105 mins
Synopsis: Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. But when Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his dangerous drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan, which involves them posing as smugglers and taking hostages in an effort to get him and his best friend out of their hopeless environment before it is too late.
Screening “To My Father//إلى أبي” + Director’s Talk
Event Details
September 29, 2024
3:00 PM EDT
TIFF Lightbox 350 King St W, Toronto, Cinema 2
To My Father is Abdel Salam Shehadah’s poetic and mesmerizing homage to the studio photographers of the 1950’s – 70’s. Set partly in a refugee camp in Rafah, this is a remarkable look back at fifty years of Palestinian and Arab history, through photographs, reportage and the voices of photographers. A photo here is not just a photo: it brings history to life.

The film, which premiered at the second TPFF in 2009, is a deeply personal and moving film that spotlights the talent of Gaza-born director Shahadah, who has worked all over the world as a director, cameraman and journalist, and filmmaker. Shehada has been directing and producing films and programming for over 30 years – including more than 20 documentary films, which have been nominated and won awards. Shehada also worked for NHK Japan TV.

Following the screening, TPFF is honoured to host an in-person conversation with Director Shahadah, recently exiled from Gaza, about his reflections as a filmmaker from Gaza.
Co-presented with Toronto Palestine Film Festival.
Screenings:
To My Father//إلى أبي
Country: Palestine
Director: Abdel Salam Shehada
Length: 53 mins
Synopsis: “Those were days when people prettier, when eyes were filled with colour, even in black and white. What has changed – the camera, or the eye?” asks Abdel Salam Shehadah’s poetic homage to the studio photographers of the 1950’s – 70’s. Set partly in a refugee camp in Rafah, the film looks back at fifty years of Palestinian and Arab history, told through the photographs, reportage and the voices of these photographers today.
Screening “Where the Wind Comes From//وين ياخذنا الريح”
Event Details
April 13, 2025
7:00 PM EDT
TIFF Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5
Where the Wind Comes From is a road-trip film about two childhood friends bound by something deeper than romance — an unshakable, loyal friendship. Alyssa (Eya Bellagha) dreams of escape, while Mehdi (Slim Baccar) longs to create, and a spontaneous journey to compete in an art contest offers them both a chance at something more.

Writer-director Amel Guellaty’s debut feature blends reality and imagination, using Alyssa’s fantasies and Mehdi’s art to explore grief, ambition, and the weight of expectation. Through detours, conflicts, and moments of unexpected joy, the film reveals not just the struggles of a generation, but also the power of a bond that defies definition. – SANJALI PARUTHI, TIFF Next Wave Committee
Toronto Arab Film is a Community Partner to Next Wave Film Festival.
Screenings:
Where the Wind Comes From//وين ياخذنا الريح
Country: Tunisia, France, Qatar
Director: Amel Guellaty
Length: 99 mins
Synopsis: Fearless spirit Alyssa and sensitive artist Mehdi, best friends since childhood, feel cramped in their life in the outskirts of Tunis. When Alyssa discovers an artist contest in Djerba that might be their ticket out, she pulls Mehdi into a fantastical journey across Tunisia which will put their friendship to the test. Where the Wind Comes From is a road-trip film about two childhood friends bound by something deeper than romance — an unshakable, loyal friendship.
TAFF2020: Screening “Flesh Out//Il Corpo Della Sposa”
Postponed due to COVID-19.
April 26, 2020
7:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screening:
Flesh Out//Il Corpo Della Sposa
Country: Italy
Director: Michela Occhipinti
Length: 94 mins
Synopsis: Verida is due to marry in three months; the marriage has been arranged by her loving parents. According to a tradition still practiced in Mauritania that adheres to accepted standards of beauty, she has to gain weight to attain the kind of well-rounded, fuller figure that will appeal to her future husband. Three months before her marriage, her routine unfolds quietly and steadily as she sets about consuming no fewer than six meals per day and regularly weighing herself to assess her progress. An obedient daughter, she does not for one moment question the goal of twenty kilos her mother has set for her; nor does she put up much resistance to being woken up in the middle of the night to eat one more bowl of milk and another of couscous. But the process gets harder as it progresses and this puts an increasing strain on her, both physically and emotionally. Verida, who has in the meantime attracted the attentions of another man, begins to ask herself if this is what she really wants. Based on actual events, Michela Occhipinti’s feature debut is a meticulous and gentle observation of the polarising tensions that permeate the modern female experience in twenty-first century Mauritania.