SCREENINGS//عروض

TAFF2022: Screening “Don’t Get Too Comfortable”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Don’t Get Too Comfortable
Country: Yemen, Qatar, United States, Netherlands
Director: Shaima Al Tamimi
Length: 9 mins
Synopsis: Don’t Get Too Comfortable is a heartfelt introspective letter to my deceased grandfather. The letter questions the continuous pattern of movement amongst Yemenis in diaspora. The film fuses archival photographs, sourced footage, parallax animation, abstract videos to create an audio visual body of work that calls attention to the collective feeling of statelessness and sense of being felt by Yemeni (or non-Yemeni) migrants.
TAFF2022: Screening “Elektra, My Love (Elektra, Ya Gharami)”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Elektra, My Love (Elektra, Ya Gharami)
Country: Lebanon, Germany
Director: Hisham Bizri
Length: 89 mins
Synopsis: A kammerspiel-film set in the moody, cavernous ruin of the Piccadilly Theater, Beirut’s extravagant art palace destroyed after the Lebanese Civil War.
TAFF2022: Screening “Elektra, My Love (Elektra, Ya Gharami)” + Talk with Dalal Al-Bizri
Event Details
May 29, 2022
7:30 pm EDT
Paradise Theatre, 1006 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, M6H 1M2
The screening is followed by a conversation with Dalal Bizri.
Screenings:
Elektra, My Love (Elektra, Ya Gharami)
Country: Lebanon, Germany
Director: Hisham Bizri
Length: 89 mins
Synopsis: A kammerspiel-film set in the moody, cavernous ruin of the Piccadilly Theater, Beirut’s extravagant art palace destroyed after the Lebanese Civil War.
Speaker:
Dalal Al-Bizri, Lebanese researcher and writer
Dalal Al-Bizri, Lebanese researcher and writer. She specializes in contemporary Islamic movements and authored several studies on women’s issues. She served as lecturer in Political Sociology at the Lebanese University and spent ten years as researcher in Egypt.
TAFF2022: Screening “Khamsin”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Khamsin
Country: France
Director: Grégoire Couvert, Grégoire Orio
Length: 66 mins
Synopsis: Lebanon today. The traces of the civil war are all too tangible as government corruption becomes unbearable. In a country where conflict and peace are caught in an endless cycle, musicians from different backgrounds pool their talents to create an underground music scene. Each evokes his or her representation of Lebanon: its shifting geographical, political, historical and social borders, its painful passage through conflict and instability. A touching portrait of a young generation trying to build an oasis in a hostile environment where the forces of destruction continue to wreak havoc.
TAFF2022: Screening “Under The Concrete//تحت السموات و الأرض”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Under The Concrete//تحت السموات و الأرض
Country: Lebanon
Director: Roy Arida
Length: 79 mins
Synopsis: Beirut, Lebanon 2017. As the country trembles a man decides to attempt to break the world record of depth in deep diving.
TAFF2022: Screening “Virtual Voice”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Virtual Voice
Country: Sudan
Director: Suzannah Mirghani
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: This is a satirical review of our times. Suzi doll is an ego-warrior. My online avatar, marching to the algorithms of social media. She is lit by temporary outrage. A trending indignation. A passion that is fashion. A politics of the popular. Her activism is abstract. Her help is hypothetical. We know many girls like Suzi, and many times we are her: vacuous virtual voices, echoing injustices.
TAFF2022: Screening “You Resemble Me”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
You Resemble Me
Country: France, Egypt, United States
Director: Dina Amer
Length: 90 mins
Synopsis: When the bond is broken between two sisters, a little girl transforms into someone new in the name of belonging and resistance. Director Dina Amer takes one of the darkest tales of our time, the story of Muslim terror in the West, and deconstructs it in a story about family, love, sisterhood, and fractured identity.
TAFF2022: Screening “You Resemble Me” + Panel on “The Language of Belonging”
Event Details

May 28, 2022
7:30 pm EDT
Innis Town Hall Theatre, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5

Join us for a screening of “You Resemble Me” followed by a panel on “The Language of Belonging” where Jasmin Zine and Amir Al-Azraki will join Nehal El-Hadi in a moderated discussion exploring Islamophobia, radicalization, and barriers to belonging for Muslim youth in disapora.
Screening:
You Resemble Me
Country: France, Egypt, United States
Director: Dina Amer
Length: 90 mins
Synopsis: When the bond is broken between two sisters, a little girl transforms into someone new in the name of belonging and resistance. Director Dina Amer takes one of the darkest tales of our time, the story of Muslim terror in the West, and deconstructs it in a story about family, love, sisterhood, and fractured identity.
Panel:
The Language of Belonging
Moderator:
Nehal El-Hadi, Science + Technology Editor, The Conversation Canada

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.
Speakers:
Jasmin Zine, Professor of Sociology and Religion & Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University

Jasmin Zine is a Professor of Sociology and Religion & Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University. She served as a consultant on combating Islamophobia for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Council of Europe (COE), and the Office for the Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (ODHIR/OSCE). Her recent book: Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation (2022, McGill -Queens University Press) explores the experiences of the millennial generation of Canadian Muslim youth who came of age during the global war on terror and times of heightened anti-Muslim racism. She is author of a major report on the Canadian Islamophobia industry that examines the networks of hate and bigotry that purvey and monetize Islamophobia. She is a sought-after media commentator and has given numerous invited talks and keynotes in Istanbul, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Madrid, Cordoba, Nairobi, Uppsala, as well as in Pakistan and across the U.S.
Amir Al-Azraki, playwright, literary translator, Assistant Professor at University of Waterloo

Amir Al-Azraki is an Arab-Canadian playwright, literary translator, Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Studies in Islamic and Arab Cultures Program, at Renison University College, University of Waterloo. Among his plays are: Waiting for Gilgamesh: Scenes from Iraq, The Mug, and The Widow. Al-Azraki is the author of The Discourse of War in Contemporary Theatre (in Arabic), co-editor and co-translator of Contemporary Plays from Iraq, “A Rehearsal for Revolution”: An Approach to Theatre of the Oppressed (in Arabic), and co-editor and co-translator of Arabic poetry by female poets in Consequence, The Common, Poetry Foundation and Talking Writing. He is currently translating Representations of the Other: The Image of Black People in the Medieval Arab Imaginary by a Bahraini critic Nader Kadhim.
Co-presented with Provocation Ideas Festival
TAFF2022: Screening “State of Agitation//قلتلك خلص”
Event Details
May 26, 2022
6:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
State of Agitation//قلتلك خلص
Country: Lebanon
Director: Elie Khalifé
Length: 100 mins
Synopsis: Living in Beirut, a highly enthusiastic filmmaker is in a state of hyper inspiration characterized by an overfiow of contrasting ideas. As a consequence, his characters will go through compelling and extraordinary circumstances. To clear his mind, he heads north where a screening of his short films is scheduled in a rural public school. A series of encounters along the way will turn his world upside down.
Co-presented with Al Rawiya
TAFF2023: Canadian Shorts Film Programme
Event Details
June 4, 2023
3:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
04.23.2018//A Hail Mary
Country: Canada
Director: Faisal Karadsheh
Length: 10 mins
Synopsis: 04.23.2018// A Hail Mary explores the intricacies and unique challenges faced by Karadsheh’s family during their immigration to Toronto, from the widely-publicized death of his grandfather to the personal experiences and intimacies of home.
This film was supported by the Toronto Arab Film x Trinity Square Video Filmmaker Commission.
45th Parallel
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: 45th Parallel focuses on the Haskell Free Library and Opera House—a unique municipal site between the jurisdictions of Canada and the United States.
Leila and the Cigarette//ليلى و السيجارة
Country: Canada, Lebanon
Director: Leah Manasseh
Length: 15 mins
Synopsis: In 2011, Leah decided to go to Lebanon to film with her grandmother. Two weeks after the shoot, her grandmother died of metastatic lung cancer. It took her 12 years to get the courage to revisit their last conversations.
Simo
Country: Canada
Director: Aziz Zoromba
Length: 23 mins
Synopsis: The usual rivalries and jealousies that exist between the two teenage brothers Simo and Emad take a dangerous turn that may seriously impact the future of their family.
TAFF2023: Screening “Fiasco//فياسكو”
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Fiasco//فياسكو
Country: Lebanon, Netherlands
Director: Nicolas Khoury
Length: 70 mins
Synopsis: The strong and, at time, dysfunctional relationship that binds Nicolas to his family after the death of his father.
TAFF2023: Screening “Foragers//اليد الخضراء”
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
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.
TAFF2023: Screening “Mediterranean Fever//حمى البحر المتوسط”
Event Details
June 2, 2023
6:45 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
Mediterranean Fever//حمى البحر المتوسط
Country: Palestine, France, Germany, Qatar, Cyprus
Director: Maha Haj
Length: 108 mins
Synopsis: Waleed develops a close relationship with his neighbor, a small-time crook with an ulterior plot in mind that leads them into a journey of dark encounters.
TAFF2023: Screening “Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?//بشتقلك ساعات”
Event Details
June 1, 2023
7:00 pm EDT
Virtual
Screenings:
Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?//بشتقلك ساعات
Country: Egypt, Lebanon, Germany
Director: Mohammad Shawky Hassan
Length: 63 mins
Synopsis: Pop clichés are twisted with the love between two men who encounter a polyamorous chorus of lovers.
TAFF2023: Screening “Streams//أطياف”
Event Details
June 10, 2023
4:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
Streams//أطياف
Country: Tunisia
Director: Mehdi Hmili
Length: 122 mins
Synopsis: Amel is released from prison after an adulterous affair. In the violent streets of Tunis, she seeks her missing son Moumen, a young football player destroyed by the scandal.
TAFF2023: Screening “The Desert Rocker”
Event Details
June 10, 2023
1:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
The Desert Rocker
Country: Algeria, Morocco, Canada, France
Director: Sara Nacer
Length: 75 mins
Synopsis: The Desert Rocker is an intimate, witty and profound portrait of the extraordinary Hasna El Becharia, a pioneer Gnawa artist.
TAFF2023: Screening “The Lebanese Burger Mafia//مافيا البرجر اللبنانية”
Event Details
June 11, 2023
4:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
The Lebanese Burger Mafia//مافيا البرجر اللبنانية
Country: Canada, Lebanon
Director: Omar Mouallem
Length: 103 mins
Synopsis: The meaty saga of a rogue fast- food chain with mysterious origins, a cult following, and a secret pathway to the immigrant dream.
TAFF2023: Screening “A Gaza Weekend”
Event Details
June 11, 2023
7:00 PM EDT
The Revue, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2M9
Screenings:
A Gaza Weekend
Country: United Kingdom, Palestine
Director: Basil Khalil
Length: 90 mins
Synopsis: When a mutant virus known as ARS breaks out in Israel, people are desperate to get out of the country. Among them are Englishman Michael and Israeli Keren, a wealthy couple who find themselves stranded amidst lockdown. Their only hope is to smuggle their way into the Gaza Strip, which, due to the separation wall, is ironically “the safest place in the world.”
TAFF2023: Screening “Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo”
Event Details
June 4, 2023
8:00 PM EDT
Innis Quad, 111 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E8
This is a free screening! No tickets required. First come, first served. Please note that the venue can only accommodate 120 people. This is an outdoor screening. Audiences are required to bring their own seating, camping chairs or blankets.
Screenings:
Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo
Country: Canada
Director: Marya Zarif, André Kadi
Length: 72 mins
Synopsis: Forced to leave Syria because of the war, Dounia and her grandparents go in search of a new safe haven.
TAFF2023: Shorts Programme 1
Event Details
June 3, 2023
1:00 PM EDT
1411_D, 1411 Dufferin Street, Unit D, Toronto, ON M6H 4C
Screenings:
Hamza: Chasing the Ghost Chasing Me
Country: Palestine| 2022
Director: Ward Kayyal
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: After recovering from his illness, Hamza returns to the forest to hunt a vicious lion that devours his memory.
Paradiso, XXXI, 108
Country: Palestine, Germany
Director: Kamal Aljafari
Length: 19 mins
Synopsis: Nothing can be heard anymore; the roar of our plane absorbs every other sound. We are heading straight to the world’s biggest display of soundproof fireworks, and soon we will drop our bombs.
Buzz
Country: Sudan
Director: Mohamed Fawi
Length: 20 mins
Synopsis: As her health deteriorates, a mother watches her son and daughter prepare for her inevitable passing and their new reality.
The Window//ما بعد آب
Country: Lebanon
Director: Sarah Kaskas
Length: 16 mins
Synopsis: A year after Beirut’s port explosion, Basma and Mariam reunite in their old bedroom. Surrounded by a view of the port’s remains, the two women attempt to resolve their shared trauma and broken relationship.
Memory’s Consolation//في عزاء الذاكرة
Country: Lebanon
Director: Chadi Hazime
Length: 18 mins
Synopsis: After Hilton’s door had been closed for many years, the light was finally seen when the director decided to send a public invitation to watch his Big Show inside the ancient art shelter “”Hilton Cinema – Al-Mreijeh District””. As soon as the show began, he was surprised by another realistic show, to explore the past and history of Hilton Cinema, which was the silent witness to many of the harsh circumstances that occurred in this region