COMPETITION FILMS
Narrative Competition (15):
BEIRUT: OPEN CITY (DOKHAN BELA NAR) (Lebanon) directed by Samir Habachi.Starring Khaled Al Nabawi, Diamond Bu Abbud, Rodney Al Haddad and Serene Abdel Noor .An Egyptian director who goes to Beirut to shoot a film about repression in the ArabWorld, on the basis that Beirut has a huge margin for freedom of expression, still confronts Lebanese-style repression.**World Premiere
FAWZIA: A SPECIAL BLEND (KHALTET FAWZIA) (Egypt) directed by Magdi Ahmed Ali.Starring Elham Shaheen, Fathi Abdel Wahab, Ghada Abdel Razaq, Ezzat Abu Ouf,Nagwa Fouad and Aida Abdel Aziz.
Four poverty-stricken women whose souls are rich suffer in a cruel reality, but they faceit with love and hope.**World Premiere
GULABI TALKIES (India) directed by Girish Kasaravalli.
Starring Isaac Thomas, Kottukapally Umashree, KG Krishna, MD Pallavi, Ashok Sandip,Master Praveera and Poornima Mohan.Gulabi, a midwife, is passionate about watching films. After her husband runs off to staywith his second wife, Gulabi starts spending her days in the cinema and when she bringsa television to watch films at home, her neighbours and husband slowly start joining her.**Named Best Indian Film at the 10th Osian Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema.
HASIBA (Syria) directed by Remon Butros.
Starring Jiana Eid, Sulaf Fawakherji, Talhat Hamdi, Salim Sabri and Kinda Hanna.Several women from Damascus aspire to a better future with determination andconfidence against the backdrop of historical events from 1927 and 1950.**World Premiere
HENNA (UAE) directed by Saleh Karama.
Starring Aaesha Hamad, Ghazal and Salem Obaid Saif Al Raihi.
Henna’s mother’s epilepsy has led to a divorce. When her cousin Tarsh, a desert Bedouin, comes to visit the family, Henna will find in him a new father figure.**World Premiere
LAILA’S BIRTHDAY (EID MILAD LAILA) (Palestine, Tunisia, Netherlands)
directed by Rashid Masharawi.
Starring Mohammed Bakri, Areen Omari and Nestor Sanz.
On Abu Laila’s daughter’s 7th birthday, his wife insists that he be home early and bring apresent and a cake. However, the daily life in Palestine is a bit chaotic and takes him inmany other directions before he gets home.**Regional Premiere
MERMAID (RUSALKA) (Russia) directed by Anna Melikyan.
Starring Masha Shalaeva, Yevgeniy Tsyganov, Maria Sokova, Nastya Dontsove, Irina Skrinichenko and Veronica Skugina.
Alisa, who believes she can make wishes come true, conjures up a major hurricane that destroys her seaside home, forcing her and her mother to move to Moscow where she grapples with love, modernity and materialism.
**Received the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival, the Grand Prix at the Sofia International Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin InternationalFilm Festival.
O’HORTEN (Norway) directed by Bent Hamer.
Starring Bård Owe, Espen Skjønberg, Ghita Nørby and Bjørn Floberg.
Horten has to face the fact that his life, as he knows it, is changing; he’s hit retirement age, and he has no clue what to do next.
**Norway Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film.
ON A DAY LIKE TODAY (ZAY EL NAHARDA) (Egypt) directed by Amr Salama. Starring Arwa Gowda, Asser Yassin, Basma and Ahmed Al Fishawi.
When May's fiancée is killed in a tragic accident caused by her addict brother, her life suddenly falls apart. Months later, as she tries to recover, she meets Yasser and discovers that her new relationship is developing according to the same dates as her former fiancée.**World Premiere
WILD BLOOD (SANGUEPAZZO) (Italy) directed by Marco Tullio Giordana.
Starring Monica Bellucci, Luca Zingaretti, Alessio Boni, Maurizio Donadoni, Giovanni Visentin and Luigi di Berti. Osvaldo Valenti and Luisa Ferida are a famous- and infamous- couple on and off screen.
Addicts with a tendency towards promiscuity, their private lives are as wild as the villainous, depraved characters they portrayed.**Official Selection Cannes Film Festival.
TERRA NOVA (NOVAYA ZAMLYA) (Russia) directed by Alexander Melnik.
Starring Konstantin Lavronenko, Andrei Feskov, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Marat Basharov and Sergei Zhigunov.
In the year 2013, the death penalty has been abolished all over the world. At a Russian prison arrives Ivan Zhilin convicted of killing 22 people. Rather than spend the rest of his life in prison, Zhilin agrees to deportation to Terra Nova, a remote Arctic Region, where he will be left with 200 prisoners and plentiful supplies. **Regional Premiere
TERRIBLY HAPPY (FRYGTELIG LYKKELIG) (Denmark) directed by Henrik
Ruben Genz.
Starring Jakob Cedergren, Kim Bodnia, Lene Maria Christensen and Lars Brygmann. Copenhagen police officer Robert Hansen is transferred to the small town of Skarrild in Southern Jutland as a substitute Marshall where he discovers that the town is full of corruption and is hiding its many secrets.
**Grand Jury Prize Karloby Vary Film Festival.
TIME OF COMRADES (ZAMAN AL RIFAQ) (Morocco) directed by Mohamed
Chrif Tribak. Starring Farah El Fassi, Said Assou, Yassin Ferjani and Manal El Sedikki. In the early 90s in the North of Morocco, Rahil decides against her family’s will to go on with her studies at a university where she discovers a political conflict between democratic and Islamist currents.
**World Premiere
YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF (USA) directed by Udayan Prasad.
Starring William Hurt, Maria Bello, Eddie Redmayne and Kristen Stewart.
Three strangers from two generations, bound by lonliness, reach out to one another, embarking on a road trip through Louisiana. It takes them on an emotionally revealing journey and leads them to fulfillment through love.
**Official Selection Sundance Film Festival.
ZARA (Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Kurdistan) directed by Ayten Mutlu Saray. Starring Serpil Öcal, Barbara Sotelsek and Alisan Önlü.
Two friends, Mirka and Nursa set out to find Mirka’s home village of Zara in the Kurdish heartland. Once found, they discover a variety of wandering souls searching for things they have lost: letters, their house, their childhood, friends, parents and children. **World Premiere
Lama Tayara