Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress.
~Gibran Khalil Gibran
The Middle East Film Festival
I'm going to have a go here at talking about some of the Iranian films that I've watched over the last month or two, which are fewer in number than I would have liked. Because I'm rushing into writing this post, somehow driven into it by the madness of war, I can't say that I'm reaching here for a thematic arc, in the same way as I did for instance in my last post. I'm just writing out of urgent need to say something.
I got asked a simple question: 'Are there any Romeo & Juliet stories in Israeli and Palestinian/Arab cinema?' It's a question that reveals what we want cinema to give us - hope, reconciliation, the possibility that love can transcend politics. The answer, unfortunately, is more complicated and sadder than one might hope.
Given the title of the film, it's a funny (happy or otherwise, not sure!) coincidence, that I'm writing this post on November 5th 2025, a date familiar enough to readers in the United Kingdom. Many Britons now seem to have no idea any more of the history, mind, and it's a date which needs a quick search on Wikipedia for most of those not native to these islands. There was zero intention of the two things would overlap. The only reason for writing now is a conversation about this film which took place only two days ago.
This really happened. The most grotesque thing you could imagine (until the next thing, at least). This is indeed the TRUTH that Donald Trump posted this morning. He wasn't hacked, and it wasn't a hoax. In what more auspicious possible circumstance could I return to write the first post on this blog since I left things off nearly a year ago?
Click or tap on the links or pics to go to an exhaustive (but still growing) catalogue of films. There are links to trailers, and sometimes to the whole film.
Most of the films are made in Israel and/or about Israel, but there are also many interesting films from the Jewish Diaspora.
To be clear, there are some turkeys. I don't necessarily LIKE all the films in the catalogues, but I'll talk about them anyway. (BTW, whatever film you see next to this text may or may not be a turkey, but probably isn't!)
"I" comes before "P" in the alphabet, and I can't get a fancy function to randomise the order that the lists appear here.
I wanted to randomise it, but honestly the system I'm using doesn't stretch to that. Maybe in the future it will be possible.
Many troubles in the Middle East started over small potatoes, true, but please understand the intention. Whatever. Check out the films.
These pics are picked at random from a database, but I'm trying to balance between the various 'sides'. Every time I change the site again, faces will change!
Contrary to cruder analyses, there are more than two (or even three) 'sides' in the Mid East. Hence not all will be represented in the pics.
Also, maybe you've noticed that the Middle East is still pretty patriarchal, so there's a chance you don't see any female faces here. Tap/click to find a few, however.
As with the directors, these pics are being pulled from a database, and they change every time I change the site.
Hopefully you're seeing a fair mix, but as pointed out above, there are more than three sides to this story, so not all sides will show up here.
However, there is a fighting chance that you'll see at least one woman here, as the ratio of actors is closer to parity than with the directors.
I didn't really need to make this page, because of course you can already find the posts automatically listed.
However, once my blog started to feel more like a book (one that will surely need a lot of editing), I decided to make this page.
Partly it's just a way for me to refer quickly back to what I've already written about, but hopefully readers will also find it useful.
If anyone out there is even VAGUELY interested (what are the odds?):
A list of all the films that I've watched in the course of this project
*mostly* in chronological order, although the order did get a bit lost in places