SIGNALS: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 4 There is no Visual Arts Festival at IFFR 6

Suspended Dreams 8 Arab spring, Between the Lines 10 Shifting Shores 12

EGYPT it’s all Egyptian Timelines 14 Debates 18

Tickets and information 19 Photoshop Colofon 19

Raed Yassin, performance (Wed 1-2)

Signals: Power Cut Middle East 3 Busy making revolution

farther afield over the past year. But also the images of what does not dissipate overnight. This is precisely the time at Flashback to IFFR 2011: On the same day that Naturally, this edition of the film festival will pay attention went on behind the news cameras: the video footage which which a new, complex reality develops, which entails intense the film festival in Rotterdam started, the first to the Arab revolutions, whatever their outcome. As the filmmakers have been using to show the sentiments of Arab scrutiny of the new rulers. demonstrators made their way to Tahrir Square IFFR has demonstrated for decades, filmmakers are the first populations for quite some time. in Cairo and never left. Naturally, we had to draw outside attention to the injustices in their countries Power Cut Middle East does not focus on the entire Arab already seen the astounding events in Tunisia. – openly or concealed by metaphor. Because one thing becomes abundantly clear from the films world, but on two countries in particular: Syria and Egypt. On 17 December 2010, the 26-year-old Tuni- and installations that are part of Power Cut Middle East: Syria, because - in spite of continuous massive demonstra- sian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to Moreover, these contemporary revolutions are supported this is not a sudden, Facebook or Twitter-powered revolu- tions - the regime is the only one in the Arab world to refuse himself and this led to demonstrations and riots and fed by moving images. Thanks to the omnipresent tion. The new social media played an important part as did, to see that things have to change. Egypt, because the revolu- against the 23-year regime of dictator Ben Ali. cameras, such major historic events can now be, for the first tion seemed completed until violence erupted once more. In less than a month, the unheard-of happened: time, experienced almost ‘live’ at street level. The moving the dictator gave in and fled. image – the raw material for a film festival – plays an es- these revolutions are The English newspaper The Times named Tunisian fruit seller sential role. The filmmakers both record and participate in Mohamed Bouazizi the most influential person of 2011. The At the time, however, no one expected there would be such the protests. Egyptian artist Hala Elkoussy sent the following fed by images American weekly TIME opted to name not an individual, but an immense knock-on effect. For the first time in decades, e-mail when she did not turn up for the première of her ‘the demonstrator’ in general as its ‘Person of the Year 2011’. cracks – both large and small – appeared in regimes around short film Mount of Forgetfulness. ‘I didn’t make it to the for that matter, the rapid dissemination of news images, the Arab world. That Hosni Mubarak would resign only a screening because I was busy making revolution.’ And there but large groups of demonstrators did not use Facebook Over the course of a single year, a desperate, brave indi- few weeks later in Egypt; that Saudi women would ignore are many others like her. or Twitter. Moreover: revolutions don’t develop due to 140 vidual became a movement, a fearless mass. Power Cut the ban on female driving en masse; that the people of Syria character slogans. Middle East demonstrates - in images, films, artworks and in would revolt; and that, after a prolonged struggle, freedom Power Cut Middle East intends to understand these moving visual culture – that this mass had been coming to the boil fighters in Libya would pose next to the lifeless body of images by turning them inside out. Because what are we There was a much longer run-up to these revolutions as well for some time. Muammar Gaddafi – in early February 2011 all this was still really looking at? Not just the moving images that spread as a longer aftermath. Spring, even an Arab one, passes and unthinkable. the Arab revolutions to neighbouring countries or even true democratic change takes time. People’s dissatisfaction Sacha Bronwasser / Peter van Hoof

4 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 5 Nomadic Festival Visual Arts Festival Damascus at International Film Festival Rotterdam

At a time when the Arab world is undergoing important comprising exhibitions, screenings, multi-media perfor- changes, with shifting power structures and civic movements mances, lectures and talks curated by Charlotte Bank and gaining in strength, this IFFR Signals theme programme will Delphine Leccas. With a focus on contemporary visual prac- take a close look at the cultural field in this region, and more tices in the Middle East in dialogue with other regions of the specifically the film and visual arts scene. We will examine world, the Visual Arts Festival Damascus aims to create a how signs of the changes to come were visible within the forum for meetings, exchange and discussion between young cultural production of the past decade, and while it is still artists from Syria and neighbouring Arab countries. too early to assess the ramifications of recent events, we present an attempted overview of how these changes will The next edition of the festival was planned for autumn influence future works and affect film and video production 2012. While we still hope VAF will be able to realize the in the region. project in Damascus, an alternative idea was born to turn the festival into a ‘nomadic’ event, at least temporarily, In addition to the screening of short films, documentaries and in this way provide a platform for the festival to exist and feature films and the presentation of installations and elsewhere, focusing on artistic and cultural practice in Syria discussions, this programme features lectures and artists’ in its regional and international context. talks that explore new opportunities for artists and filmmak- ers within the changing realities in the region. Charlotte Bank / Delphine Leccas

The programme’s format will be that of a nomadic festival: the Visual Arts Festival Damascus (VAF). VAF was initiated by Delphine Leccas and launched in 2010 with a programme

6 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 7 Suspended Dreams Experimentation and documentary in Syrian cinema Dreams of the City Mohamad Malas, 1983, 120’ Dolls. A Woman from A young widow and her two sons Damascus arrive in Damascus, only to find Diana El Jeiroudi, 2007, 56’ Compilation Behind Walls: cruelty and rejection from her By editing together conversations Two critical documentaries about father. Dib, the eldest of the boys, with Syrian housewife Manal and how the prison system has been ex- The Suspended Dreams programme brings This inventiveness born out of a restrictive political environ- comes of age while witnessing the the marketing manager of the Arab ploited in the recent past to suppress together films by Syrian filmmakers that explore ment helped create unique works of cinema, both fiction successive military coups in Syria Barbie doll Fulla, director Diana the protests in Syria. during the 1950s. El Jeiroudi outlines how - in 2007 - alternative and experimental means of storytell- and documentary, often consciously blurring the boundaries Tue 31-1 12:30 LantarenVenster 3 hard-working housewives and the Cousin ing through the use of documentary. From very between the two genres. The specific term ‘auteur docu- Muslim Barbie are in the same boat. Mohammad Ali Atassi, 2001, 50’ personal angles, they offer a variety of read- mentary’ was coined by documentary filmmaker Omar Tue 31-1 12:30 Cinerama 4 A portrait of the Syrian dissident Riad al-Turk, who managed to ings of different issues in Syrian society and Amiralay to describe his own vision of an engaged, personal maintain his ideals through long concerns in the region. cinematographic style in documentary filmmaking. periods of extreme harshness as a political prisoner.

Syrian cinema has often been described as ‘Arab cinema’s This approach has been carried on by filmmakers of the On the Sand, Under the Sun best kept secret’. Until very recently, film production in young generation working in digital media since the year Mohamad Malas, Hala Alabdalla the country was entirely state-sponsored, yet the films of 2000. Along with the 1983 classic Dreams of the City by Mo- 1998, 32’ I Am the One Who Carries Short documentary about political the pioneers of Syrian auteur cinema, Omar Amiralay, hamad Malas – a fine example of how fiction and documen- Flowers to Her Grave prisoners struggling to come to Mohamad Malas and Oussama Mohammad, remain very tary elements interweave in elegant storytelling – Suspended Hala Alabdallah, Ammar Al-Beik, terms with haunting memories, far from the cliché of state-controlled propaganda films. Al- Dreams presents experimental documentary films from the 2006, 105’ produced for the anniversary of the Memories of shared political activ- Universal Declaration of Human though all artistic and cultural production is subject to rigid past decade that explore different aspects of contemporary ism, dreams and ideals converge in Rights. censorship, filmmakers have developed highly individual Syrian society. an intimate portrait of four women. Mon 30-1 10:00 Cinerama 4 visual universes through the use of metaphors and symbols All have changed through harsh experiences of prison and exile, yet and thus have created a space for critical approaches to the Curator: Charlotte Bank they also managed to stay true to country’s social and political issues. themselves. Wed 1-2 20:15 LantarenVenster 2 Thu 2-2 12:15 Cinerama 7

8 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 9 Short Syrian Documentaries 1 Short Syrian Documentaries 2 Short Syrian Documentaries 3 Since the middle of the past decade, Syrian Tue 31-1 17:15 Cinerama 5 Wed 1-2 14:30 LantarenVenster 6 filmmakers have been making increasing use of Thu 2-2 14:30 LantarenVenster 6 Thu 2-2 11:45 LantarenVenster 5 new digital media. This has opened up hitherto Between the Lines Flint Mountains unknown possibilities, also for young emerg- Nidal Hassan, 2009, 46’ ing filmmakers. An independent film scene has What does a sculptor need? Syrian Filmmakers: Between Censorship and Social Critique emerged, strongly inspired by former generations A small village surrounded of auteur filmmakers. by rocks. Friends. And nature as the greatest artist Tue 31-1 14:45 LantarenVenster 6 They Were Here The Right Side of That Road of all. Syrian cinema is very little known throughout the national festival circuit, their films remain a rarity. And in their Thu 2-2 17:30 Cinerama 6 world, but also in the Arab countries. Until very Ammar Al-Beik, 2000, 8’ Hazem Alhamwi, 2004, 14’ own country, they are either banned or hardly ever screened. Homage to the old steam engine A thoughtful reflection on the Stone Bird Hazem Alhamwi, 2006, 30’ recently, film production in Syria was entirely One of the peculiarities of Syrian cultural politics is to allow the Crack plant of Damascus, once a symbol of working class district of the Old The eccentric Abu Hajar has Reem Ghazzi, 2007, 4’ controlled by the state, yet Syrian films are very occasional production of critical films, and then let these films optimistic belief in development, but City of Damascus and the relations chosen a life in seclusion The film tells the story of an now a deserted and desolate place. between the people and the built far removed from the cliché of state-sponsored disappear in the archives of the National Film Organization, to escape an unsolvable elderly tailor who has chosen environment. personal conflict imposed propaganda films. They are in fact highly criti- where they remain difficult to locate. Films frequently get lost to withdraw from the world af- on him by a rigid society. cal and often surprisingly political. In light of the and interested foreign programmers are often denied screening ter a traumatic incident. He is now observing his surround- omnipresent censorship, this is particularly as- permission. Adding to this are inadequate conditions for con- ings from behind the safety of tonishing. Censorship might force a filmmaker or servation, which endangers the preservation of the films. the closed door of his shop. artist to search for particularly innovative means Two Cities and a Prison City of Emptiness of expression, but it does not curb creative pro- Since the middle of the past decade, Syrian filmmakers have Soudade Kaadan Before Vanishing Ali Sheikh Khudr, 2010, 8’ duction. Thus, the Syrian filmmaker Mohamad increasingly begun using new digital media. This has opened 2008, 38’ Joude Gorani. 2005, 14’ A searching look back to another Malas once remarked that ‘censorship is a gift up hitherto unknown possibilities, also for young emerging The film maker follows an The Barada is Damascus’ main river. time and another place, filled with experimental theatre project because it forces one to look for new and more Once it was the city’s lifeblood which emptiness and void, where escape filmmakers. An independent film scene has arisen, strongly in Syria on their tour through provided riches, but nothing now seems the sole solution. interesting structures through which to speak’. inspired by former generations of auteur filmmakers. Particu- rutal Syria and in a prison for remains of that illustrious past. larly Omar Amiralay (who sadly died in early 2011) has been young delinquents. In order to carve out a space for social and political critique an important reference figure with his highly personal style Foam and circumvent censorship, Syrian filmmakers have developed of documentary filmmaking, something he termed ‘auteur Reem Ali. 2006, 46’ a complex visual language of metaphors and symbols in order documentary’. This legacy is carried on in works by the young A Syrian family struggles with memories of imprisonment Silence to address issues of power, violence and social rigidity. But generation of critical filmmakers in Syria, who through the and their care for a mentally Rami Farah 2006, 40’ while films by filmmakers like Mohamad Malas and Oussama aesthetic possibilities of the new media are addressing pressing disabled member while pre- An emotional investigation of sense and senselessness in the conflict over Mohammad have gained worldwide recognition on the inter- issues of contemporary Syrian society. paring their emigration to Canada. the occupied Golan and the events leading to its loss.

10 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 11 Shifting Shores 1 Power Cut Installations In the programme Shifting Shores, we present recent video works by A journey to different parts of the Middle East. Images of war and Shifting Shores artists from different Arab countries. Centring on a net of meaning peace and a phone call from Space. Three installations from the Shifting around the concepts of memory, identity and change, the works Shores section and one from the section EgyptianTimelines, brought Recent Arab video art represent individual investigations into how history, collective together at the festival venue Ai Weiwei Café/Power Cut Installations. memory and transmitted images and narratives are closely linked to Shifting Shores 2 Tue 26-1 - Sat 4-2 12 :00-20:00 Shifting Shores presents recent video works by artists contemporary fast-changing realities. Wed 1-2 15:00 Cinerama 6 Artist Talk: Monday 30-1: 17:00 Tue 31-1 20:00 LantarenVenster 5 Thu 2-2 16:45 LantarenVenster 5 Ai Weiwei Café / Power Cut Installations from different Arab countries. Centred on the concepts Wed 1-2 12:30 LantarenVenster 2 of memory, identity and change, the works represent individual investigations of how history, collective memory and transmitted images and narratives are closely linked to contemporary, fast-changing realities. While questioning es- tablished parameters, the works in this programme present new angles and invite an active re-thinking of preconceived The Story of Milk and Honey Adam E.D.L. Bombes Pipe Dreams Out of Focus Basma Alsharif, 2011, 10’ Ali Heraize, 2011, 1’ Siska, 2011, 21’ Sandra Ghosn, 2011, 6’ Ali Cherri, 2011 Salah Saouli, 2011 ideas, often with much humour and irony. Transparent Evil An unknown author fails to write A young man navigates through the A video portrait of Lebanon’s Why do we want to be seen on Fa- A memorable phone call between A vision of the city of Beirut at a Roy Samaha, 2011, 27’ a love story as images and sounds cityscapes of contemporary Cairo national electricity building as an cebook? And how? To find out, the the Syrian cosmonaut Muhammed crucial moment of transition from Having travelled to Egypt to Curators: Charlotte Bank and Delphine Leccas develop into a search for human with its contrasting crowds and homage to a modernist project, artist decided to emulate the profile Faris (part of a Russian space mis- war to peace that draws the observer complete a commissioned work, perception of history and truth. finds himself out of place and strug- linked to the very construction of pictures of a number of Facebook sion) and the late president Hafez into a quasi-physical engagement. the artist and his friend get caught gling to be heard. Lebanon’s modern state. members. al-Assad. up in the events of the Egyptian revolution.

Of Heroes, Football, and One Eye Open Remarks on a Square All That Remains of My Ikon, 2010, 18’ Master-Slave Dialectic Trespass the Salt Jasmina Metwaly, 2011 The Sun’s Incubator Childhood (performance) A search for the artist’s roots as he Paul Hage Boutros, 2011, 7’ Larissa Sansour / Youmna Chlala, Remarks on a Square is a series of Ammar Al-Beik, 2011, 12’ Lynn Kodeih, 2011, 25’ travels to and investigates Who is the boss? The director, think- 2011 videos shot during and after the Life of a young family as they wit- Questioning what it means to be a world that is partly foreign and ing and self-assured or the camera, a An investigation of the nuanced uprising in Cairo, Egypt in 2011. The ness revolutions and birth, misery a ‘revolutionary’ today, the artist fascinating, partly familiar. mindless machine? A power struggle relationship of Europe and the series consists of twelve clips, 2-5 and hope, interlinked by the will to explores hopes and disillusions in with unexpected results. Middle East through a fictitious and minutes in length, of particular mo- achieve change. the context of recent Arab history in lavish feast, where humour and the ments shot during, after and around this live performance. grotesque converge. the Egyptian uprising.

12 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 13 not always with the population’s interest at heart. It’s no Filmmaker and activist Philip Rizk, on the other hand, Egyptian Timelines surprise, then, that so many films feature Egypt’s two largest shows us in his short documentary Sturm: Fayoum how cities, Cairo and Alexandria, as their protagonists. In Search rural areas suffer from Egypt’s centralised governance, and of the City (In the Papers of Sein) is Hala Elkoussy’s dream- how corporate capitalism and governmental neglect have cut like ode to Cairo, in which the city functions as an imaginary off villagers from their water supply. In the past year, pictures of the streets of on different formats of cinematic poetics, thematic narrative construct. Her timeless protagonist, Sein, takes us on a Cairo, Alexandria and other cities in Egypt – strands, and issues that concerned Egyptian artists, feature journey through Cairo’s urban history, reflecting on how the Repressive regimes control their subjects’ experience of both professional and amateur – have filled film and documentary makers in the years prior to the Arab city has changed over the years and where it has remained time and individual agency. Desires, needs and dreams the newspapers, and our TV and computer Spring. As this obviously is a personal selection, it can only marooned in time. are managed by the state and pitted against tired dogmas screens. Somehow this has allowed us to feel offer clues, and never the full picture. of patriotic sacrifice and false nationalism. This results in close to the action, and given us a sense of the In Maydoum, Omar Robert Hamilton ponders the ten- paralysis and eventually in anger. Sherif El Azma’s Rice City concerns, battles, hopes and worries that have Timelines insists that January 25th did not occur in a sions between rural and urban life, land and family bonds, is a claustrophobic film noir in which time is suspended and played themselves out on the Egyptian streets. vacuum but was a catharsis, brought on by the success of national belonging, home and homelessness. He questions the air is menacing and stifling. The three protagonists never But is it possible to genuinely understand the revolution in Tunisia as well as the 2008 Mahalla bread the values of cultural and national identity in an increasingly leave the apartment and seem imprisoned in their respective and contextualise those telegenic images at riots in Egypt, the brutal death of Khaled Said at the hand of globalised world. Tensions between the urban and the rural roles. This feeling of huis clos echoes the lethargy of a popu- a superficial glance? How can we place what the Egyptian police in 2010, and more than half a century of are also to be found in an episode of Ahmed Khaled’s horror lation subjugated by authoritarian rule. At times, the cycle we are seeing within a larger socio-historical, economic grievances and repression and exploitation of the drama series for television, Doors of Fear. The first of its of inertia ruptures and discontent boils to the surface, as visual and cultural context? These are the ques- Egyptian people by its military rulers. All of the latent and kind in the Arab world, the series translates old Egyptian is quite literally the case in Hassan Khan’s Rant, but also in tions we aim to address in the Egypt Timelines bubbling tensions underlying the eruptions and protests of folkloric tales into present-day mysteries. In the El Naddaha the form of pent-up sexual frustration and a stratification of programme. the past year can be found in the films: sometimes poetic episode situated in the countryside, the ‘Naddaha’, a sea social mores according to class differences in Islam Kamal’s and subtle, sometimes harsh and confronting. nymph-like creature dwelling in the Nile delta, calls men Local Copy, set in conservative Alexandria. To this end, we have specifically chosen to show films and videos that precede the uprising on January 25, 2011, and As civic dissent was predominantly – and occasionally still In order to look at the present and towards the future, the asked our filmmakers and artists to juxtapose their work is – played out in metropolitan areas, in city squares and reclaiming the streets Timelines programme retraces a few steps and pauses, to another Egyptian film of their choosing, so as to create a streets and on the facades of buildings, the Arab Spring was acknowledging the fact there are no immediate quick fixes ‘dialogue’. No formal criteria were set, other than that the as much about calling for political reform as it was about to their death. Whereas in Hamilton’s film the countryside for complex processes of change. chosen film be of particular inspiration or importance to the reclaiming the streets. The Arab world is undergoing rapid features as a place of innocence, honesty and rootedness, filmmaker’s practice. The programme’s material zooms in urbanisation and massive urban expansion, unfortunately here the countryside holds dark secrets and seductions. Nat Muller

14 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 15 Egyptian Timelines 1 Egyptian Timelines 2 Egyptian Timelines 3 Egyptian Frame The revolution did not happen overnight - it was foreshadowed in Tue 31-1 15:00 Cinerama 5 Tue 31-1 17:00 LantarenVenster 6 Egyptian films, visual pamphlets, artworks and documents in recent Wed 1-2 17:00 LantarenVenster 6 Wed 1-2 12:30 Cinerama 4 years. In Egyptian Timelines, current events are placed in a larger socio-historical, visual and cultural context. In addition, some of the filmmakers show, beside their own work, a film of choice: influential or clarifying, but rarely shown abroad. Mon 30-1 17:00 LantarenVenster 1 Thu 2-2 19:30 LantarenVenster 5 In Search of a City (in the Papers of Sein) The Three Disappearances of Back to the Square Maydoum Blue Dive A Local Copy Rant Hala Elkoussy, 2012, 34’ Revolution Soad Hosni Petr Lom, 2012, 83’ Omar Robert Hamilton, 2010, 13’ Mostafa Youssef, 2011, 16’ Islam Kamal, 2010, 20’ Hassan Khan, 2009, 7’ Idler Sein’s perambulations become Khaled Hafez, 2006, 3’ Rania Stephan, 2011, 68’ A year after the euphoria on Tahrir A poised and elegantly executed In this story about brief encounters We follow four young people Developed through a series of a layered declaration of love to the An experimental screen is split into A rapturous elegy to a rich and Square, the demonstrators’ goals ensemble piece of understated, set in the Mediterranean Alexandria, through Alexandria en route to the intense workshops with an actress, city of Cairo. Shot before, but edited the three colors of the flag - Red, versatile era of film production in have not even come close to being emotionally-nuanced brilliance. the filmmaker sheds his light on square outside the Bibliotheca Alex- the film investigates the psyche of after the Egyptian revolution. White and Black - which represent Egypt through the work of one of its reached. The country is ruled with When he hears his cousin is to sell death and compares it to the sea. andrina. It slowly becomes apparent an unspecified cultural operator - the three promises of the 1952 most revered stars, Soad Hosni, an an iron fist and there is still no de- his families’ land, Sharif gets on the what this is all about. perhaps critic, perhaps curator. Kit Kat (Fragment) Pan-Arab military coup-d’état/ exceptional artist who from the early mocracy. The ‘eye of the world’ has In/Out of the Room Sturm: Ahmonseto first plane to Cairo. Second short Daoud Abdel Sayed, 1991, 5’ revolution: Social Equity, Liberty 1960s into the 1990s embodied the moved elsewhere. How things have Dina Hamza, 2010, 52’ Philip Rizk, 2010, 6’ film by independent filmmaker Kit Kat is one of the few films in and Unity. modern Arab woman in all of her been in Egypt since 25 January 2011, In Dina Hamza’s latest documentary In the Ahmonseto textile factory, Omar Robert Hamilton. contemporary Egypt that shed light complexity and paradoxes. is explained using five portraits of In/Out of the Room, a rare story capitalism cuts to the bone and the on the lives of people living in the people from various walks of life. unfolds of the life of a man whose workers pay the price. slums, including their dreams and job is to take lives. A Resident of the City Sun 29-1 21:15 Pathé 6 problems. Another Passion Adham El Sherif, 2011, 15’ Mon 30-1 12:15 Powerful documentary about big Heba Yossry, 2006, 20’ LantarenVenster 2 city life as a stray dog. Survival Narrative film in which Yossry Neon Lamp Rice City Wed 1-2 18:30 Pathé 2 instinct and territorialism; dogs are portrays her own struggle to study Emad Maher, 2008, 26’ Sherif El Azma, 2010, 20’ just like humans. In the Last Days of the City cinema, and the confrontations she An exceptional debut in which Beautifully crafted suspense in this WORMyWOOD (Trailer) had with her family. Maher - who spent two years stylish, black-and-white experimen- Mon 30-1 14:30 Live performances by the Swiss/ Tamer El Said, 2011, 5’ working on this project - gave sound tal Egyptian short that features a The A77A Project LantarenVenster 6 Lebanese duo Praed and the North The lives of a group of friends an important role in the telling of strong score by Nahla Mattar. Khaled Hafez, 2009, 3’ Tue 31-1 19:45 Cinerama 5 African BooDoRoo Band, plus a Dreams of Hind And Camilla Sturm: Fayoum from Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon have the story. The work is a 2-D and 3-D anima- special Sounds of the Middle East Doors of Fear: El Naddaha (Fragment) Philip Rizk, 2010, 5’ been shaped by their cities of birth tion of a figure of the ancient gods, set by DJ Arc de Triomphe. Ahmed Khaled, 2011, 42’ Mohammed Khan, 1989, 5’ In the village of Abuxa in the gover- and the instability of their region. Anubis. A figure that dwells in Mon 30-1 22:00 WORM Doors of Fear is the first horror Two women attempt to break free norate of Fayoum, the Nile’s water Shot in Cairo, Baghdad, Beirut and the streets of urban Cairo today, drama series in the Arab world. from the brutality and hopelessness isn’t flowing like it once did. Here, . intermingling with citizens and Dealing with different folkloric tales of their impoverished lives in Cairo. capitalism cuts to the bone and situations. of horror from the Egyptian culture, some villagers get no water. the series is both innovative and relevant to the target audience. 16 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 17 Debates Ticket info

Reading the Arab Image Smart Talk: The Road to Damascus You can purchase tickets online at filmfesti- Program This programme led by Chris Keulemans (writer, director On Thursday evening, 2 February, it’s time for The Road valrotterdam.com or at the box offices of all The full IFFR 2012 lineup can be found of Tolhuistuin) takes a look at the images, both moving and to Damascus - a multimedia debate on the best-kept secret festival locations. online on www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com or still, that have come from the Middle East like a huge wave of Arab cinema: Syrian films. The Visual Arts Festival download the special IFFR-app in the store. in the past few months. Due to the increase of mobile phone Damascus cannot take place this year because of the con- A film ticket costs € 11 / discount tickets films and photos, we have a great deal of material whose tinuing unrest in Syria and consequently is descending on € 8.50 (for Tiger Friends, students or CJP). Locations origin is uncertain. It seems authentic, but who is coming to Rotterdam as a nomadic festival for art and visual culture. There are no online transaction costs nor de Doelen blows with whom? And who has made the films and taken Based on unique film excerpts, Bas Heijne will lead a discus- is there a surcharge for purchasing tickets Kruisplein 40 (central box office) the photos? Regimes are also aware of this, and use it to sion on independent Syrian films, the circumvention and from the box office. Ai Weiwei Cafe / Power Cut Installations their advantage. Are we seeing actors, paid demonstrators, acceptance of censorship, and the visual arts as a vehicle for Karel Doormanstraat 278 real people? How do we read and interpret these images? In social criticism. Is still possible to operate autonomously as a New this year is that every tenth ticket will Cinerama three lectures/performances, we investigate the role of the filmmaker? And can these films be seen as a harbinger of the be free both online and at the box office. The Westblaak 18 image in the present movements and how images help in the present resistance? system automatically tallies the tickets that Rotterdamse Schouwburg construction of identity in times of crisis. With, among others, curator Charlotte Bank, filmmakers you purchase (even if you do so at various Schouwburgplein 25 Hazem al Hamwi, Soudade Kaadan and Maher al Sabbagh. times) using your MyIFFR account. LantarenVenster With lectures from journalist Ferry Biedermann (The In collaboration with De Unie in Debat. Otto Reuchlinweg 996 National, Elsevier Magazine, former Middle East corre- Tickets that have not been sold one hour Colophon Thursday 2 February 21:00 before the film screening starts are sold at Programme concept: Sacha Bronwasser and Peter van Hoof spondent for de Volkskrant), Egyptian filmmaker and activist / Curator Suspended Dreams: Charlotte Bank / Curator Kleine Zaal Rotterdamse Schouwburg Jasmina Metwaly. And the performance ‘There is no Arab the Last Minute Shop at Schouwburgplein Shifting Shores: Delphine Leccas, Charlotte Bank / Co cura- Free entrance and at the box office at a 50% discount! tor Egyptian Timelines, Reading the Arab image: Nat Muller spring, it’s all Photoshop’ by Lebanese artist/musician / The Road to Damascus: Thijs Barendsen, Mieke van der Raed Yassin. Linden, Farid Tabarki / Contributors: Nat Muller, Charlotte Bank, Delphine Leccas, Sacha Bronwasser, Peter van Hoof, Ronald Rovers, Saskia Gravelijn, Afke Duinkerken / Copy Wednesday 1 February editor: Jane Bemont, Mark Mallon / Guest Office: Inge 19:30 LantarenVenster 5 Visser / Programme Department: Robert de Rek / Design: Free entrance Scale to Fit / Print: Veenman+ / Published by: International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2012

18 Signals: Power Cut Middle East Signals: Power Cut Middle East 19