Film Catalogue :

Palestinian, Arab, Muslim World Films

The full list of Palestinian/Arab and Iranian films. As stated on the accompanying page, some of the Palestinian films were made in Israel and primarily with Israeli money, but I think you have to be a bit of an ideological hardass to say that that automatically makes them unPalestinian, and since they speak of the Palestinian perspective, they are to be found here. I think that it’s also clear that the Egyptian and Iranian film industies, in particular, are much bigger than what is seen here, but of course they are not at the centre of my focus.

I am hoping at some point that I will be able to create one small list, which will belong on both pages, containing films which describe respectful and equal relationships involving Israelis and Palestinians. There are a couple of candidates, which I still haven’t got around to watching at the time of writing.

Palestinian films from/about Gaza and the Occupied Territories

I used the word “normal” in the corresponding Israeli section, to describe films which depict everyday life, situations which are perhaps not specifically Jewish, and whose themes could therefore be adapted into another cultural context. Most notably, the majority of those Israeli films contain little or no reference to Arabs. Slightly misleading for me to describe that as normal. It’s of course delusional to pretend that you can ignore what’s going on, but it’s a delusion successfully marketed to the Israeli public ever since construction of the wall began. Conversely, it is virtually impossible for a Palestinian film to contain no references to Israel, because normal life for Palestinians is the life under Israeli occupation. So there is a substantive difference in that regard at least. All that said, why fuss too much over this word? Evidentally nothing is normal in the whole situation, seen from outside, and yet this is also normal life, seen from the side of either of these two concerned parties.

Strictly and rather technically-pedantically speaking, The Stranger isn’t a Palestinian film, being about Arabs in the Golan Heights, who of course traditionally identify as Syrian rather than Palestinian. That identification has apparently been fragmenting since the Civil War started in Syria, but of course the official political status of the place in the eyes of the so-called international community remains that of 1967/1973. The film is also not directed by a Palestinian, but since it’s set in Israeli-occupied territores I’ve put it in this section.

Films about 1948, and about exile

Very hard stuff. These films are all documentaries, apart from Farha, a film which caused quite a controversy when Avigdor Lieberman (an Israeli politician who was once considered far right, but has come by the time of writing to be considered a relative moderate compared to some characters in the Israeli government - “relative” is of course very very relative in this case) condemned Netflix for streaming the film in Israel. Uncomfortable viewing for him, no doubt, but I’m here for honest and open discussions.

Palestinian films from inside the 1948 borders

A very small section, of course - simply because most productions made inside those borders are of course Israeli productions. I’m assuming that at least some of the funding for some of these films was Israeli, but they’re very much Arab directed and Arab-acted. Only one of these films, Ajami, has a Jewish Israeli character foregrounded in the story. Fair enough - it’s about carving out a space. The most interesting thing to note about these films is the enormous diversity of Arab identities that you have inside a relatively small geographical space (just like Lebanon) - from Nazarene Christian Arabs in Wajib to tent-dwelling Bedouin in Sandstorm.

Wedding in Galilee ("Urs al-Jalil" - عرس الجليل) (1987) Trailer
Ajami (عجمي) (dir. Scandar Copti, 2009 - Interview) Trailer
Sandstorm ("Asifat Ramliya" - عاصفة رملية ; "Sufat Khol" - סופת חול) (2016) Trailer
Junction 48 (ג'נקשן 48 ; "Mafraq 48" - مفرق 48) (2017) Trailer
Wajib (Duty - واجب) (dir. Annemarie Jacir, 2017 - Interview) Trailer

Palestinian short films (from the Occupied Territories, and from exile)

Netflix is a bit annoying in a couple of ways, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, but I really do have to commend them for the selection of Palestinian films which they make available, and there are a few little gems here which you would really struggle to find anywhere else. Several of these films come from Mahdi Fleifel. I’ll have to devote a post to his works at some point. Three of those, Xenos, A Man Returned and 3 Logical Exits follow up on his longer feature, A World Not Ours, tracing the often desperate life decisions of an acquaintance from the Lebanese refugee camp in which the feature film is shown.

Like Twenty Impossibles ("Ka'inana Ashrun Mustaheel" - كأننا عشرون مستحيل) (dir. Annemarie Jacir, 2003) Trailer
Xenos (dir. Mahdi Fleifel, 2014) Trailer
Ave Maria (2015) Trailer
A Man Returned (dir. Mahdi Fleifel, 2017) Trailer
Bomboné (2017) Trailer
The Crossing ("Al-'Ubur" - العبور) (dir. Ameen Nayfeh, 2017) Trailer
A Drowning Man (dir. Mahdi Fleifel, 2018) Trailer
3 Logical Exits (dir. Mahdi Fleifel, 2020) Trailer
The Present ("Al-Hadiya" - الهدية) (2020) Trailer

Egyptian and other North African films

At the moment of writing, I have still watched fewer than half of these films, simply because Israel-Palestine (by extension Lebanon, and by further extension to that: Iran) have been the priority so far. I’ll have more to say later, but anyway the work of Mohamed Diab (Cairo 678 and Clash) is pretty interesting. Also, The Unknown Saint, a Morrocan film, is good if you’re in the mood for something quirky, away from the eye of the Middle East storm. Tunisia, the original home of the Arab Spring, has made an interesting contribution since then. Although only a very short film, Aya (available on Netflix last time I checked) is well worth searching out. It’s heartbreaking, but it says a lot in little or no time at all. Of course I can’t mention Tunisia and Morocco without also acknowledging their later neighbour, Algeria. And when we talk about those three countries together, we are also going to be soon talking about France. Hence you’ll find films in this section which also turn up in the Arab (et al.) Diaspora section at the bottom of this page.

Cairo Station ("Bāb al-Ḥadīd" - The Iron Gate - باب الحديد) (1958) Trailer
Chitchat on the Nile ("Thartharah fawqa al-Nīl" - ثرثرة فوق النيل) (1971)
Tea in the Harem (1985) Watch on Youtube
Days of Sadat ("Ayaam al-Sadat" - أيام السادات) (2001) Watch on Youtube (grainy and jumpy film, but anyway, it's there)
Chouchou (2003) Trailer
Cairo 678 (٦٧٨) (dir. Mohamed Diab, 2010 - Interview) Trailer
Rock the Casbah (2013)
As I Open My Eyes (À peine j'ouvre les yeux) ("Ala Hayat Ayni" - On my Eye - على حلة عيني) (2015) Trailer
Clash ("Eshtebak" - اشتباك) (dir. Mohamed Diab, 2016 - Interview) Trailer
The Flower of Aleppo ("Zahrat Halab" - زهرة حلب) (2016) Trailer
Undercover Egypt (2016)
Aya (آية) (2017) Trailer
Yomeddine (Judgement Day - يوم الدين) (2018) Trailer
Papicha (2019) Trailer
The Unknown Saint ("Sayid al-Majhul" - سيد المجهول) (dir. Alaa Eddine Aljem, 2019 - Interview) Trailer
The Hunt for Gaddafi's Billions (2021)
The Blue Caftan (Le Bleu du caftan) ("a-Zraq al-Quftan" - أزرق القفطان) (2022) Trailer

As I Open My Eyes (À peine j'ouvre les yeux)

Films from/about Iraq, Syria and Lebanon

I’ve already written one very long post about three of these films (West Beirut, The Insult and Memory Box), and a shorter post about one other (Costa Brava, Lebanon). I’ll be coming back soon enough, and at the time of writing these words (September 2024) it’s looking ever more likely, alas, that Lebanon is going to get foregrounded again. I’ve never been to Lebanon, but somehow it very much lives inside me. As for the films about Iraq and Syria, God help me… So much violence, so much sadness. After realising that I needed a Turkish section, and then realisting that I needed a Kurdish section, I added quite a few Iraqi Kurdish films, which you’re seeing listed here.

Notice that I’ve added some Saddam Hussein era propaganda films at the top of the list. I’m watching them so that you don’t have to. I will surely suffer in the act, but the idea is that they’ll give me something to think about for a post.

Films from/about the Arabian Peninsula

I gotta be honest. Before I started this project it had not occurred to me that there was the possibility of a film coming out of Saudi Arabia. I was wrong. There are two lovely Saudi films on this list - Wadjda and Barakah Meets Barakah. However, I should point out that they were made before MBS’s hostile takeover. I imagine the possibilities for expression are severely reduced now from what they were when those films were made. If the sportswashing is working on you, your probably not reading this anyway. Two of the films are about a conflict which we have mostly forgotten in the last decade - Yemen. I don’t know anything about it, other than that the Houthis are there. I’ll try to learn something.

Don’t get the wrong idea, by the way, about one of the films on this list. I’m WELL aware, from pre-reading about it, and from watching only two minutes of it, that Al-Kameen is a propaganda film. I’m going to watch it alongside Hunger Ward, a warts and all documentary about the war in Yemen. Theeb was made in Jordan, but it’s very much about the Hejaz, and is pretty much the only film on either list which harks right back to the pre-1948 historical roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict (albeit that it’s only a quite oblique reference).

Wadjda (وجدة) (dir. Haifaa Al-Mansour, 2012 - Interview) Trailer
Theeb (Wolf - ذيب) (2014) Trailer
Barakah Meets Barakah ("Baraka yuqabil Baraka" - بركة يقابل بركة) (dir. Mahmoud Sabbagh, 2016) Trailer
Bitter Rivals: Iran and Saudi Arabia (2018) Trailer
Hunger Ward (2020) Trailer
Al-Kameen (The Ambush - الكمين) (2021) Trailer

Films from/about Iran

Apologies for any inconsistent transliteration of the Farsi - I’m just lifting them from Wikipedia. Nothing much else to say. Iran versus Israel - we can all see what’s going on. Apart from all that shitty geopolitics and the crappy internal politics of both countries, Iran produces beautiful and deeply contemplative films which are worth watching for their own sake and in their own right, not only for the sake of political or historical commentary. I’ve already written briefly about one of these, and will certainly come back for more soon. Iranian films can be a bit strange for the beginner. The reduced stylistics and complete lack of artifice can leave the Western viewer expecting something which they will not find there. We can say that the films of Asghar Farhadi are a decent way in. They combine Iranian cinematic aesthetics with themes that are recognisable enough for a Western audience.

Note that you can in fact find quite a few of these films, in full, on YouTube. I just want to say that I’ve added the links here, but that I have absolutely no idea about whether there are copyright issues. If the links don’t work for you, then very possibly there was, but I rather guess that the situation is similar to that pertaining to a lot of Russian films which you can easily find on YouTube, and that whatever copyright law exists is pretty flexible for these movies. It’s also possible, in some cases, that because of the censorship in Iran the makers decided to put the films on YouTube for free, to provide an easy way for people to find them (albeit that it’s probably not easy at all in Iran these days to get onto YouTube). I just don’t know. Of course there’s no point expecting super HD video quality, or amazing sound. Nor do I have any idea if the subtitles will be consistent or anything close to accurate!

Turkish films

I suppose it was inevitable that I would eventually have to add this section, especially once I started talking about the intersection of the Middle East with Europe, on both sides that is and not only from the long historical Jewish angle. It’s actually a bit of a cliché to point out that this is a country with one foot in Europe and one foot in the Middle East, so this section certainly complements the following section of films relating to diaspora communities in Europe. As for the name of this country, sorry Recep, I’m not going to play your silly word game, and I’ll continue to call it what I’ve always called it, in my language, not yours. Unintentional double meanings make a language funny. Taking offence at double meanings only reveals how brittle your national ideology is. To be discussed.

NGL - like all the others on this site, it’s really hard to find some of these films! And when you do find them, getting them with subtitles - synced! - is probably harder. It’s very similar to the situation with Iranian films, though. There are quite a few on YouTube (EVEN with subtitles, occasionally), and you can also find them on dodgy Russian sites, but there of course you’re not likely to be getting them with subs. The difference with the Iranian films is that in the latter case many of the filmmakers are very intentionally making the films available on as many sites as they can find, because their films are banned in Iran. They’re also fairly keen, it seems, to ensure that the films will have subtitles, so that they get noticed outside Iran. In the Turkish case, I guess the dynamics are not the same. Whatever we say about the state of politics in Turkey, it’s not the same as Iran, and films being available so much on free sites comes down to commercial streaming sites not picking them up, and to the fact that it’s still kind of the Wild West as far as copyright is concerned. Needless to say, though, I can’t guarantee that a link that I’ve found today will still be working tomorrow!

The Edge of Heaven, AKA Auf der anderen Seite

Kurdish films

And then, finally (let’s assume!), inevitably, there had to be a Kurdish section. I knew that it wouldn’t take long for this to become a necessity as soon as I added the Turkish section. For transparent geopolitical reasons, all the films in this section will be found in other sections - Turkey, Iran, Iraq/Syria and maybe also the diaspora section at some point.

At the time of creating this section, I’ve only watched a couple of the films listed, and both of them come from the Iranian side of those mountains. The first of them, Samira Makhmalbaf’s Blackboards is one that I watched many years ago in the cinema, more or less on its release. It pretty much blew my mind. The second one is Bahman Ghobadi’s A Time for Drunken Horses, one of several Kurdish-themed movies that he has made. Ghobadi is himself Kurdish, so that makes plenty of sense.

After adding the Turkish section, researching fairly exhaustively to the point where I had identified 40-odd films that I wanted to have a look at, and then getting to the point that it was time to look for Kurdish-made films, I found things to be in an interesting position. Kurdish language and culture have of course been far more ruthlessly suppressed over the years by the Kemalist and then by the strange post-Kemalist weirdo Islamist Turkish state than in Iran and (post-Saddam) Iraq; and it turns out, as with the Iranian case, that that’s kind of a benefit to my project, because some Turkish-made Kurdish films are freely available on YouTube. Just as in Iran, I’ll assume, this is to get around Turkish government restrictions. So most (maybe all?) films by Kazim Öz are easy enough to find online, with subtitles. However, the Turkish state’s presumed obsession with making sure that some films don’t get seen may have worked against me in the case of one film, which I really want to see - Hüseyin Karabey’s Come To My Voice. It’s pretty weird. The trailer, with English language subtitles, is there on YouTube, but I can’t find the film itself anywhere. Maybe on some streaming site that I’m not aware of, but the only place that I’ve found it on sale was on the German Amazon, and irony of ironies, the whole point of a film being made in the Kurdish language is completely negated by the Germans dubbing the voices. Not many things annoy me more than that, and I’ll say that it’s one of the things that Britain gets right compared to Germany and Latin-speaking countries of Europe. That, and the famous sense of humour. Maybe not much else, alas.

Yol (Rê - The Road) (1982) Trailer
A Time for Drunken Horses (Dema hespên serxweş - When the Horses Are Drunk ; Zamāni barāy-e masti-e asbhā - زمانی برای مستی اسب‌ها) (dir. Bahman Ghobadi, 2000) Watch on Youtube
Blackboards ("Textê Reş" - تەختێ رەش ; Takhté siah - تخته سیاه) (dir. Samira Makhmalbaf, 2000) Watch on Youtube
Marooned in Iraq (dir. Bahman Ghobadi, 2002) Watch on Youtube
Vodka Lemon (dir. Hiner Saleem, 2003) Watch on Youtube
Turtles Can Fly (dir. Bahman Ghobadi, 2004) Trailer
Crossing The Dust ("Perrînewe le Xûbar" - پەڕینەوە لە غووبار) (dir. Shawkat Amin Korki, 2006) Watch on Youtube
Half Moon ("Niveyemang" - نیوەمانگ) (dir. Bahman Ghobadi, 2006) Trailer
My Marlon and Brando (Gitmek: Benim Marlon ve Brandom) (dir. Hüseyin Karabey, 2008) Trailer
On The Way To School (İki Dil Bir Bavul - Two Languages, One Suitcase) (2008) Trailer
The Storm (Bahoz ; Fırtına) (dir. Kazım Öz, 2008) Watch on Youtube
Kick Off (dir. Shawkat Amin Korki, 2009) Trailer
My Sweet Pepper Land ("Wilatê Tijê Şîrînêkem" - وڵاتە تیژە شیرینەکەم) (dir. Hiner Saleem, 2013 - Interview) Watch on Youtube
Come To My Voice (Were Dengê Min ; Sesime Gel) (dir. Hüseyin Karabey, 2014) Trailer
Memories On Stone (Bîranînên li ser kevirî) (dir. Shawkat Amin Korki, 2014 - Interview) Trailer
A Flag Without a Country ("Iallaî bê wllat" - ئاڵای بێ وڵات ; Parcham bedon keshor - پرچ م بدون کشور) (dir. Bahman Ghobadi, 2015) Trailer
The White Sycamore (Çinara Sipî ; Beyaz Çınar) (dir. Kazım Öz, 2016) Watch on Youtube
Zer (dir. Kazım Öz, 2017) Watch on Youtube
The Exam ("Ezmûn" - ئەزموون) (dir. Shawkat Amin Korki, 2021) Trailer
Kobanê (2022) Watch on Youtube
Baghdad Messi (2023) Trailer

Films from/about the Middle East Diaspora

The deeper I go with all this, the more intertwined it all becomes. Jewish history very obviously demands a separate section for films coming from the diaspora in Europe, America and elsewhere, but it didn’t occur to me at the time of creating that section that I would eventually need to create a complementary section for the other side of the ledger. Becoming a big fan of the Belgian/Spanish/Moroccan actress Lubna Azabal changed this. More than anyone else I’ve come across, she straddles the Mediterranean, equally comfortable playing a Lebanese in Incendies, a Palestinian (I think) in Paradise Now, a Moroccan in The Blue Caftan and Rock the Casbah, and French or Belgian in Tel Aviv On Fire and Amal (pictured here). I haven’t seen her in something Spanish-speaking, but I suppose that must exist.

Amal (no spoilers) was the tipping point, bringing me to the understanding that there’s a whole category of films that deal with the complex issues relating to assimilation and Islamic radicalisation in European societies. Colonial history dictates that France and Belgium (by extension from France, I assume) are the crucible for this as far Arabs are concerned, but not only France and Belgium of course. Layla M (pictured) comes from the Netherlands, for example. And then if you’re going to talk about this subject you’ve also got the enormous, complicated Turkish (and don’t forget also Kurdish) community in Germany, which in turn means that I’m probably going to have to start talking about Turkish and Kurdish films as well, doesn’t it? There’s already some Kurdish content, coming mainly from the amazing Iranian-Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi. Aaaaaah, it’s getting bigger and bigger. And then, in turn, do I add films relating to Muslim communitiees in Britain? Primarily from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Can we stretch geography to suggest that either of those are in the Middle East? Obviously we cannot. But do the issues of the Middle East impinge on their political and cultural attitudes towards Britain and the West in general, and are there analogies to the Arab communities in France and Belgium and the Turks in Germany? Blatantly they do, and clearly there are, yes.