Zenithshoponline.Com Unprecedented Access to Quality Films and Music from the Arab Region and Diaspora

ZenithShopOnline.com Unprecedented access to quality films and music from the Arab region and Diaspora

FILM AND MUSIC CATALOGUE Institutional & Home Use

SEPTEMBER 2010

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Photograph by Fouad El Koury © Available for purchase at www.zenithimagelibrary.com www.zenithshoponline.com INDEX

FEATURE FILMS Ahlaam, Mohamed Al Daradji, Iraq (2005) p. 4 Amreeka, Cherien Dabis, Palestine (2009) p. 4 Atash, Tawfic Abu Wael, Palestine (2004) p. 4 Bab El Oued City, Merzak Allouache, Algeria (1994) p. 5 Basra, Ahmad Rashwan, Egypt (2008) p. 5 Best of Times, Hala Khalil, Egypt (2004) p. 5 Borderline, Sonia Chamkhi, Tunisia (2008) p. 6 Caramel, Nadine Labaki, Lebanon (2007) p. 6 Chronicle of a Disappearance, Elia Sulieman, Palestine (1996) p. 6 Days of Glory, Rashid Bouchareb, Algeria (2006) p. 7 Divine Intervention, Elia Sulieman, Palestine (2002) p. 7 El Medina, Yousry Nasrallah, Egypt (1999) p. 7 Eye of the Sun, Ibrahim El Batout, Egypt (2008) p. 8 Gate of the Sun, Yousry Nasrallah, Egypt (2004) p. 8 Halfouine Child of the Terraces, Ferid Boughedir, Tunisia (1990) p. 8 In the Battlefields, Danielle Arbid, Lebanon (2004) p. 9 Land of Fear, Daoud Abdel Sayed, Egypt (1999) p. 9 Le Grand Voyage, Ismael Faroukhi, Morocco (2004) p. 9 London River, Rashid Bouchareb, Algeria (2009) p. 10 2 Paradise Now, Hany Abu Assad, Palestine (2005) p. 10 Pomegranates and Myrrh, Najwa Najjar, Palestine (2009) p. 10 Salt of this Sea, Annemarie Jacir, Palestine (2006) p. 11 Seeds of Doubt, Samir Nasr, Egypt/Germany (2004) p. 11 Sheherazade, Tell Me A Story, Yousry Nasrallah, Egypt (2009) p. 11 Silence of the Palaces, Mufida Tlatli, Tunisia (1994) p. 12 Son of Babylon, Mohamed Al Daradji, Iraq (2009) p. 12 The Time That Remains, Elia Suleiman, Palestine (2009) p. 12 Under the Bombs, Philippe Aractingi, Lebanon (2006) p. 13 West Beirut, Ziad Doueiry, Lebanon (1999) p. 13 The Yacoubian Building, Marwan Hamed, Egypt (2005) p. 13 The Yellow House, Amor Hakkar, Algeria (2007) p. 14 Zaman: the Man from the Reeds, Amer Alwan, Iraq (2003) p. 14

DOCUMENTARIES Beirut Diaries, Mai Masri, Lebanon (2006) p. 15 Carioca, Nabiha Lotfy, Egypt (2009) p. 15 Edward Said: the Last Interview, Mike Dibb, UK (2005) p. 15 Garbage Dreams, Mai Iskander, Egypt (2009) p. 16 Gaza on Air, Samir Abdallah, Egypt/Palestine (2009) p. 16 I See the Stars at Noon, Saeed Taji Farouky, UK/Morocco (2004) p. 16 Memories of Ras Beirut, Mahmoud Hojeij, Lebanon (2006) p. 17 The One Man Village, Simon El Habre, Lebanon (2008) p. 17 Reel Bad Arabs How Hollywood Villifies A People, Sut Jhally, US (2006) p. 17 Remnants of a War, Jawad Metni, Lebanon (2009) p. 18 Slingshot Hip Hop, Jackie Salloum, Palestine (2008) p. 18 So Near Yet So Far, Eliane Raheb, Lebanon (2001) p. 18 Suspended Dreams, Mai Masri and Jean Chamoun, Lebanon (1993) p. 19 Take Me Home, Mais Darwazah, Jordan (2008) p. 19 These Girls, Tahani Rashed, Egypt (2006) p. 19 War Love God and Madness, Mohamed Al Daradji (2008) p. 20

SHORTS & EXPERIMENTAL The Bride of the South, Nermine Haddad, Lebanon (2007) p. 21 Mona Hatoum, UK (2005) p. 21 Palestine 2006 Short Films Collection, Palestine (2006) p. 21 Phatwa, Hala Al Salman, Iraq/Canada (2008) p. 22 Sons of Eilaboun, Hisham Zreiq, Palestine (2006) p. 22 Stranger in My Home, Sahera Dirbas, Palestine (2007) p. 22 This Palestinian Life, Philip Rizk, Egypt (2009), p. 23 www.gilgamesh.21, Tariq Hashim, Iraq (2007) p. 23 www.zenithshoponline.com INDEX

CLASSICS A Drink and a Cigarette, Niazi Mostafa, Egypt (1955) p. 24 A Man in our House, Henri Barakat, Egypt (1961) p. 24 Al Medaq Alley, Hassan Al Imam, Egypt 1963) p. 24 Cairo 30, Salah Abu Seif, Egypt (1966) p. 25 Chased by the Dogs, Kamal El Sheikh, Egypt (1962) p. 25 Fatma, Ahmed Badrakhan, Egypt (1947) p. 25 Gossip on the Nile, Hussein Kamal, Egypt (1971) p. 26 The Last Night, Kamal El Sheikh, Egypt (1963) p. 26 Life or Death, Kamal El Sheikh, Egypt (1955) p. 26 Passion and Revenge, Youssef Wahbi, Egypt (1944) p. 27 Struggle in the Valley, Youssef Chahine, Egypt (1954) p. 27

MUSIC Arabology by YAS, Lebanon (2009) p. 28 Bater by Soapkills, Lebanon (2001) p. 28 Chant Traditionnel Maronite by Soeur Marie Keyrouz, Lebanon (2004) p. 28 Cheftak by Soapkills, Lebanon (2002) p. 29 Crossing into the Electric Magnetic by Halim El Dabh, Egypt (2001) p. 29 Dabkeh 2020 by Omar Souleyman, Syria (2009) p. 29 3 Halalium by U-Cef, Morocco (1999) p. 30 Human Friendly Noises by Scrambled Eggs, Lebanon (2002) p. 30 Jazeera Nights by Omar Souleyman, Syria (2010) p. 30 Khartesh Aa Zaman by Rayess Bek, Lebanon (2010) p. 31 Mashrou3 Leila by Mashrou3 Leila, Lebanon (2009) p. 31 Maslakh 03 - Live in Beirut by Peter Brotzmann and Michael Zerang, Lebanon (2005) p. 31 Maslakh 04 - The Adventures of Nabil Fawzi by Gene Coleman and Raed Yassin, Lebanon (2006) p. 32 Maslakh 05 - Cloister by Tom Chant and Sharif Sehnaoui, Lebanon (2006) p. 32 Maslakh 06 - Cedarhead by Zerang, S. Sehanaoui, Yassin, C. Sehnaoui, Haber, Hindi and Saade, Lebanon (2007) p. 32 Maslakh 07 - Mawja Studio One by Bullock, Kerbaj and Rawlings, Lebanon (2007) p. 33 Maslakh 10 - A Church is Only Sacred to Believers by Christian, Milton, Prevost and Saade, Lebanon (2009) p. 33 Nuit Gravement a la Sante by Rayess Bek, Lebanon (2005) p. 33 Ruhani Oyun Havalari by Babazula and Mad Professor, Turkey (2003) p. 34 Soldier of Midian by Raz Mesinai, US (2001) p. 34 Tarab by Rabih Abou Khalil, Lebanon (1991) p. 34 www.zenithshoponline.com

AHLAAM Iraq 2005 . Feature Film . 107 min Ahlaam is one of the first feature films from post-Saddam Iraq filmed in the midst of the mayhem of the occupation of Baghdad with its cast and crew subjected to FEATURE FILMS FEATURE kidnappings and gunfire. This provides the film with an astonishing immediacy as its main character, an escapee from a lunatic asylum, wonders the streets in search of her fiancé, lost to Saddam’s men on their wedding day. Meanwhile, her relatives and her doctor search frantically for her amidst the chaos.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Mohamed Al Daradji was born in Baghdad, Iraq. His first feature film was Won the Special Jury Prize at Istanbul Int. Film Festival. Won the Golden Owl Ahlaam, shot over four months in Baghdad in 2004, while the war was going on. His Award at Leeds Int. Film Festival. Won experiences in filming in Iraq were in some sense more dramatic than the film itself, the Spirit Award for Best Feature at the Brooklyn Int. Film Festival. and were captured in his documentary War, Love, God and Madness (2008). His

LANGUAGE Arabic latest film, Son of Babylon (2009), won the Amnesty International Film Prize and the Institutional & Home Use SUBTITLES English, French, Spanish, Peace Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival (2010), and was nominated Portugese and Albanian for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (2010). REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD. UK ‘This remarkable debut film plunges the viewer into the madness of occupied Baghdad only for download and streaming. Institu- circa 2003’ The BritishFilms Catalogue. tional and Home Use. 4

AMREEKA (DVD release date after Spring 2011) Palestine 2009 . Feature Film . 96 min Cannes Critics Prize winner about a Palestinian single mother and her teenage son emigrating to the US. Told with great humour and leaving the audience in suspense as to whether the American Dream might turn into the American Nightmare.

Director Cherien Dabis is an award-winning Palestinian American independent filmmaker. She was named one of “Ten Directors to Watch” by Variety in 2009. She NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE made her feature writing and directorial debut with Amreeka. At Tribeca All Access Cannes Film Festival Won FIPRESCI in 2007, Dabis was honored with the first ever L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth Vision Prize. Cairo Int. Film Festival Won Best Arabic Film and Screenplay. Dubai Int. Award. Film Festival Won Murh Award for Best Actress. Sundance Film Festival Grand ‘Funny and playful…Beautifully written and directed…Made with a keen eye and a light Jury Prize Nomination. touch, Amreeka excels at finding the warmth and humanity in a difficult situation.’ LANGUAGE Arabic and English Kenneth Turan, film critic Los Angeles Times. SUBTITLES English ‘Terrific!... Universal in every single instance.’ The Hollywood Reporter. REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) ‘...there’s an authenticity to Amreeka that can’t be faked... a bright warmth of storytelling AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, down- that announces the filmmaker as a talent to watch.’Entertainment Weekly. loads and streaming. Home Use only.

ATASH (THIRST) Palestine 2004 . Feature Film . 109 min Winner of the International Critics’ Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, this beautifully shot feature from Tawfik Abu Wael powerfully narrates a state of extreme isolation.

Director Tawfic Abu Waelwas born in the Palestinian town of Um El-Fahim. His previous works include the shorts Bread (1997), Hashish and the Moon (1997), and Diary of a Male Whore (2000), and the documentary Waiting for Sallah El-Din NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE (2001). Thirst is his first feature film. Cannes Film Festival 2004 Won FIPRESCI Prize Critics Week. Jerusalem Film Festival 2004 Won Wolgin Award. Paris Biennal of Arab Cinema 2004 Won ‘Often sublime...provocative, yet affecting...’ Empire Critic’s Choice - Special Jury Prize. Independent on Sunday LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English ‘A confident, beautifully composed film’Philip French -The Observer REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD for ‘Undoubtedly a beautiful film...arguably the most exciting Arab film-maker Home Use. Download, streaming and to have emerged in more than a decade’ Sight & Sound Institutional tbc. www.zenithshoponline.com

BAB EL OUED CITY Algeria 1994 . Feature Film . 93 min Taking place in an impoverished neighbourhood in Algiers, the film follows the adventures of a young man after he tore down the loudspeaker of a neighbouring FEATURE FILMS FEATURE mosque when he could no longer stand its admonitions following its take over by a local radical mob.

Director Merzak Allouache is winner of the Cannes International Critic’s Prize (2004) and recipient of the eighth Genevieve McMillan and Reba Stewart Fellowship for Dis- NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE tinguished Filmmaking (2006). Born in Algiers, Allouache grew up during the Algerian Cannes Film Festival 1994 Won FIPRES- struggle for independence, then studied filmmaking at Paris’ IDHEC. Omar Gatlato CI Prize. Paris Biennal of Arab Cinema 1994 Won IMA Grand Prize. (1976), his first feature film, marked an important step change in Algerian cinema. In a career that spans over thirty years, Allouache’s other films include Adventures of LANGUAGE Arabic a Hero (1978), The Man Who Watched Windows (1982), A Love in Paris (1988), Lu- SUBTITLES English and French Institutional & Home Use REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) mière et compagnie (1995), Dans la décapotable (1996), Salut cousin! (1996), Autre AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD. monde (2001), Chouchou (2003), Bab el web (2005), and Harragas (2009). Home Use only. ‘A fascinating portrait of life in contemporary Algeria’ Time Out Film Guide

BASRA (DVD release date after Fall 2011) Egypt 2008 . Feature Film . 94 min A photographer in Cairo is on an existential and love quest at the time of the fall of Baghdad. This film continues a new trend in Egyptian cinema that blends feature filmmaking with the documentary style.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Ahmad Rashwan is from Egypt. His works include many shorts and docu- Valencia Festival of Mediterranean Cinema Won Best Cinematography and mentaries including Iraq, We Never Parted (2005), The Morning After (2002), and Nominated for Best Film. Cairo Inter- Inside People (1998). He won acclaim for his first feature film Basra. national Film Festival 2008 Won Best Screenplay. Sao Paulo International Film Festival 2008 nomination for Best Film. LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English REGION tbc AVAILABILITY tbc

BEST OF TIMES (AHLA AL AWKAT) (Coming Soon) Egypt 2004 . Feature Film An independent feature film that is one of the first in a trend for more authored com- mercial Egyptian films signalling a revival in Egyptian cinema. Salma (Hanan Turk) is a successful professional woman searching for fulfillment in her personal life. In emotional turmoil after her mother suddenly dies, she is reunited and brought close to old school friends Yusriyah (Hind Sabri) and Doha (Mina Shalabi).

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Hala Khalil is Egyptian and graduated in directing from the Cairo Academy won awards from the Arab Film Festival, Rotterdam, the Rabat Film Festival and in 1992. Her award-winning short films includeThe Kite, and she made her feature the Egyptian Film Critics’ Association. directing debut with award winning Best of Times (2004).

LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English REGION tbc AVAILABILITY Europe DVD RELEASE DATE DVDs for Europe (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional and Home Use. www.zenithshoponline.com

BORDERLINE (WARA’ AL BLAYEK) Tunisia 2008 . Feature Film . 96 min Mokhtar and Saadia come from the countryside to work as housekeeper and con- cierge in the city. A chance encounter on a bus results in a love affair between them, FEATURE FILMS FEATURE and, as if for the first time, they discover happiness through love. A precarious happiness that is hostage to turns of fate.

LANGUAGE Arabic Director Sonia Chamkhi holds a doctorate in cinema, from the Institut Superieur SUBTITLES English des Beaux-Arts inTunisia. She has written and directed short films including ‘Douz: REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) The Door Of The Sahara’ (2003) and ‘Nesma wa Rih-Normal’ (2004). AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use. Institutional & Home Use

CARAMEL (SUKKAR BANAT) Lebanon 2007 . Feature Film . 96 min A deliciously woven story of five women working together in their local beauty par- lour where their intimate stories play out. Caramel was Lebanon’s official submission to the 80th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Nadine Labaki is a Lebanese actress and director. In 2007, Labaki co- Won San Sebastian Film Festival Audi- ence Award and Youth Award 2007, and wrote, directed, and starred in her feature-film debut, Caramel, which became an Abu Dhabi Black Pearl for Best Actress. international sensation at film festivals and went on to achieve box office success. The film garnered Labaki much acclaim as both a director and actress, and put her LANGUAGE Arabic on Variety’s 10 Directors to Look Out For. SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY tbc ‘A beautiful life-affirming classic’Grazia

CHRONICLE OF A DISAPPEARANCE (SIJIL IKHTIFA’) Palestine 1996 . Feature Film . 88 min Seemingly unrelated comedy sketches, often surreal, sometimes physical and always funny, are woven together in an autobiographical account that is also a poignant commentry on the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

Director Elia Suleiman is a Palestinian film director and actor. His first two short films Introduction to the End of an Argument and Homage by Assassination won numerous awards.In 1996, Suleiman directed Chronicle of a Disappearance, his first NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE feature film. It won the Best First Film Prize at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. In 2002, Cannes Film Festival 2004 Won Suleiman’s second feature film, Divine Intervention, won the Jury Prize and Critic’s FIPRESCI Prize Critics Week. Jerusalem Film Festival 2004 Won Wolgin Award. Prize at Cannes. His third autobiographical film The Time that Remains (2009) was Paris Biennal of Arab Cinema 2004 Won nominated for a Golden Globe at the Cannes Film Festival (2009) and won interna- Special Jury Prize. tional awards. LANGUAGE Arabic, English, French and Hebrew ‘Part documentary, part psychodrama, part absurd comedy...from a Palestinian SUBTITLES English perspective.’ J. Hoberman, The Village Voice REGION 1 (U.S. and Canada) AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD for ‘...a demanding, beautiful and understated experimental film of unexpected im- Home Use. Institutional tbc. pact.’ Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times www.zenithshoponline.com

DAYS OF GLORY (INDIGENE) Algeria/France 2006 . Feature Film . 128 min Oscar-nominated Days of Glory is a tribute to the sacrifices of North Africans drafted

into the French army to help liberate France from the clutches of the Nazis in World FILMS FEATURE War 2. The cast collectively won the Best Actor Prize at Cannes and the film broke French box office records and compelled the French government to change its policies.

Director Rashid Bouchareb is a Franco-Algerian film director. His acclaimed films include Dust of Life (1995), Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film; Little NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Senegal (2001), which was shown in competition at the Berlin Film Festival; Days Won the Cannes François Chalais Award of Glory (2006), which was Oscar nominated and won awards at Cannes; London and was nominated for a Golden Palm. River (2009), which won several prizes and nominations at the Berlin International Won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival (2006) Nominated for an Oscar Film Festival. His latest film Outlaw (2010) was part of the official Cannes Film Festi-

for Best Foreign Language Film (2007). val selection and has been greatly controversial in France. Institutional & Home Use LANGUAGE Arabic and French ‘Outstanding, the most powerful war film of the year’The Times SUBTITLES English ‘The best war film since Saving Private Ryan’Radio 5 REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD. ‘An epic of real importance’ Time Out Home Use only. ‘A damn good war movie’ New York Times

DIVINE INTERVENTION (YADOUN ILAHIYA) Palestine 2002 . Feature Film . 92 min Packed with witty visual gags, comic vignettes and moments of spectacular fantasy, Divine Intervention portrays the mood of the escalating conflict in the Middle East with wicked and subversive humour.

Director Elia Suleiman is a Palestinian film director and actor. His first two short films Introduction to the End of an Argument and Homage by Assassination won numerous awards.In 1996, Suleiman directed Chronicle of a Disappearance, his first NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE feature film. It won the Best First Film Prize at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. In 2002, Won the FIPRESCI Prize and the Jury Prize and was nominated for the Golden Suleiman’s second feature film, Divine Intervention, won the Jury Prize and Critic’s Palm at Cannes (2002). Won the Silver Prize at Cannes. His third autobiographical film The Time that Remains (2009) was Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival (2002) nominated for a Golden Globe at the Cannes Film Festival (2009) and won interna- LANGUAGE Arabic tional awards. SUBTITLES English ‘Like no other film you’ve ever seen. One part silent comedy, one part art movie, one part REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD. Institu- political dynamite’ SF Said, Daily Telegraph. tional and Home Use. ‘Funny...touching and frequently very strange’ Daily Express ‘Above all, Divine Intervention has a brilliant sense of humour’ Dazed & Confused

EL MEDINA (Not yet available on DVD) Egypt 1999 . Feature Film . 108 min A young Egyptian with acting ambitions leaves his impoverished neighborhood in Cairo, intended for demolition by the Egyptian government, for France with dreams of becoming a movie star. This is against the wishes of his hashish smoking dad who wants him to move to Saudi Arabia and gain regular employment that brings home some money. In France, he becomes a well paid actor of sorts, faking box- ing matches and living on forged identity papers provided by his people-smuggling boss. In an act of rebellion to reassert his original dream, he stops match fixing, and NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE as a result is attacked and left for dead. He is deported to Cairo, a shadow of him- Nominated for the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Int. Film Festival self, and with memory loss. What awaits him there? 1999. Won the All African Film Award 2000. Director Yousry Nasrallah is an Egyptian film director. He started his career in film NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE as a film critic and directing assistant in Beirut from 1978 to 1982. He moved back LANGUAGEWon the Lina Arabic Mangiacapre Award at the to Cairo and became assistant to Youssef Chahine, whose company Misr Interna- SUBTITLESVenice Film EnglishFestival in 2009. tional, would go on to produce his films. He directed 7 films between 1988 and 2009. REGION tbc AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs. Institutional and Home Use. DVD RELEASE DATE After placement of ‘A well rounded story. Excellent viewing.’ IMDB institutional orders. www.zenithshoponline.com

EYE OF THE SUN (EIN SHAMS) (Not yet available on DVD) Egypt 2008 . Feature Film . 90 min In a style new to Egyptian cinema that blends feature filmmaking with the documentary , the film captures through the life of a family the intricacies of Egypt’s political FEATURE FILMS FEATURE system and social structure, its grievances, and the complex relationships of Arab nations from Iraq to Egypt.

Director Ibrahim El-Batout is from Egypt. He holds a Physics dregree from the NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE American University in Cairo. His passion for the moving image lead him from 1987 Winner of The Golden Tauro Best film to work in television as director, producer and cameraman. He directed numerous Award in Taormina Film Festival. Winner of Best First Film Award in Roterdam documentaries for international TV channels, such as ZDF (Germany), TBS (Japan) Arab Film Festival. Winner of Special and ARTE (France). El Batout’s documentary work has received numerous inter- Jury Mention in Carthage Film Festival.

national awards, such as the Axel Springer Award in Germany (1994 and 2000), Institutional & Home Use LANGUAGE Arabic and the Direct Marketing Association’s ECHO award (1996). Towards the beginning SUBTITLES English of 2004, El Batout stepped into the world of fiction to make long feature films with REGION tbc AVAILABILITY DVDs for Europe. Rest ‘Ithaki’ (2005). of the world tbc. Institutional and Home Use .

GATE OF THE SUN (BAB AL SHAMS) (Not yet available on DVD) Egypt 2004 . Feature Film . 278 min Narrated by Khalil, as he talks to his friend Yunes - an aging fighter lying in a coma in a disused hospital in a Palestinian camp in Beirut - hoping that his stories are keep- ing Yunes alive. Khalil’s monologue takes unpredictable turns, digressing as often as getting to the point, but always returning to Yunes’ love for his wife. Bab al-Shams is the cave where Yunes, smuggling himself across the Lebanese border, met his wife in their Palestinian village. Adapted from a novel by the same name by Elias Khoury published in 1988, Gate of the Sun is an imposingly rich film, an epic tale. STARRING Hiam Abbas, Fadi Abu Samra Director Yousry Nasrallah is an Egyptian film director. He started his career in film LANGUAGE Arabic , English and French as a film critic and directing assistant in Beirut from 1978 to 1982. He moved back SUBTITLES English to Cairo and became assistant to Youssef Chahine, whose company Misr Interna- REGION tbc tional, would go on to produce his films. He directed 7 films between 1988 and 2009. AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs. Insti- tutional and Home Use ‘Absolutely beautiful, an EPIC. This is a must see for all.’ IMDB DVD RELEASE DATE After placement of ‘This movie is one of the best films I have seen for a very long time. From its music to it’s institutional orders. poetry. From its scenery to it’s cinematography. From its dream sequences to it’s vivid portrayal of reality. It’s is absolutely magnificent.’IMDB

HALFAOUINE CHILD OF THE TERRACES (ASFUR STAH) Tunisia 1990 . Feature Film . 98 min This award winning classic of world cinema is a coming-of-age drama, set in Tunisia, of a boy having to make the transition from the world of women he inhabits as a child to the world of men, and his budding sexuality.

Director Férid Boughedir is a Tunisian film director. His film Caméra d’Afrique was screened at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival and his award winning Halfaouine is considered an international classic. His other films include Caméra Arabe (1987), Un été NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE à La Goulette (1996) and Villa Jasmin (2008) Won the Golden Palm at the Valen- cia Festival of Mediterranean Cinema (1990). Won the Tanit d’Or Award at the ‘A source of wonder. Exquisitely sensual. Packed with humor’ Chicago Reader Carthage Film Festival (1990). Nominat- ed for the César Award, France (1991). LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY UK only on DVD for Home Use. Institutional tbc. www.zenithshoponline.com

IN THE BATTLEFIELDS (MAAREK HOB) Lebanon 2004 . Feature Film . 90 min Award winning feature film daringly exploring, war, sexuality, family and social dynamics set during the Lebanese civil war. FEATURE FILMS FEATURE

Director Danielle Arbid is from Lebanon. She worked in the French print media for six years before directing her first short film, Raddem, in 1998. She went on to direct another six shorts and documentaries before making her first feature film In the Battlefields. Her most recent feature film is A Lost Man (2007) and she is releasing NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE her latest documentary film in 2010. Milan Film Festival 2004 Won Best Feature Film Award. Palm Springs In- ternational Film Festival 2005 Won New Voices/New Visions Grand Jury Prize Award. Paris Biennal of Arab Cinema

2004 Won IMA Grand Prize Award. Institutional & Home Use LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs. Insti- tutional and Home Use.

LAND OF FEAR (ARD AL KHAWF) (Exclusive to our Online Viewing Service) Egypt 1999 . Feature Film . 142 min An undercover detective is entrusted with a top secret mission, known only to him and to the minister who appointed him. He was chosen because of his moral uprightness to live a life of crime in order to expose ring leaders. He proves to be an excellent criminal, rising to the top ranks of the mafia. But his letters to the ministers remain unanswered and he is driven to distraction by this wall of silence. He starts to wonder whether anyone has been reading his letters, and where his real life stops and his fictional life begins. NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Won Best Arabic Film, Best Screenplay, Director Daoud Abdel Sayed is an Egyptian director and screenwriter. His films are Silver Pyramid Award and was nominated associated with the New Realist genre and his filmography includes: The Vagabonds for the Golden Pyramid Award at the Cairo (1985), The Search for Sayed Marzouk (1990), Kit Kat (1991), Land of Dreams Int. Film Festival in 1999. Nominated for the Prize of the City of Torino a the Torino (1993), The Stolen Joy (1994), Land of Fear (1999), A Citizen, A Detective & A Thief Int. Festival of Young Cinema in 2000. (2001), Messages from the Sea (2010)

LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES Not available AVAILABILITY Worldwide download ‘This movie must be watched one of the best thrillers in Egyptian cinema.’ IMDB and stremaing only. Institutional and Home Use.

LE GRAND VOYAGE Morocco 2004 . Feature Film . 104 min A Moroccan immigrant in France enlists his adolescent son, Reda, to drive him across seven countries as he undertakes the Hajj to Mecca. Outstanding performances, and a beautiful poignant film which won Best First Film at the Venice Inter- national Film Festival.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Ismael Faroukhi is a Moroccan-French film director. He gained exposure Won the Luigi De Laurentiis Award at the Venice Film Festival (2004). Won Best with his 1992 short film L’Exposé, which won the Kodak Prize at the 1993 Cannes Film at Mar del Plata Film Festival (2005). Film Festival. Following this, Ferroukhi co-wrote the Cédric Kahn film Trop de Bon- Nominated for Best Film not in the Eng- lish Language, BAFTA film award. heur (1994). His directorial debut was in the award winning Le Grand Voyage.

LANGUAGE Arabic ‘Critic’s Choice - Time Out Top 5 Films’ Phillip French, The Observer SUBTITLES English ‘Sapient and Enlightening’ Empire REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) ‘An Extraordinary Potent Image’ The Times AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads, and streaming for Home Use. Institutional tbc. www.zenithshoponline.com

LONDON RIVER (DVD release date after 11 October 2010) Algeria/France 2009 . Feature Film . 134 min Two strangers come to London looking for their missing daughter and son, wor- ried that they have been unable to reach them since the 7 July 05 bombings. The FEATURE FILMS FEATURE daughter and son vascilate equally convincingly between being suspected by their parents and the authorities of being either perpetrators or victims of the London bombings. In the course of this, unexamined prejudices and unexpected meeting grounds come into play. Director Rashid Bouchareb is a Franco-Algerian film director. His acclaimed films NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Berlin International Film Festival 2009 include Dust of Life (1995), Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film; Little Won Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and Senegal (2001), which was shown in competition at the Berlin Film Festival; Days the Silver Berlin Bear Award for Best Ac- tor: Sotigui Kouyaté. Golden Berlin Bear of Glory (2006), which was Oscar nominated and won awards at Cannes; London Nomination: Rachid Bouchareb. River (2009), which won several prizes and nominations at the Berlin International Film Festival. His latest film Outlaw (2010) was part of the official Cannes Film Festi- Institutional & Home Use LANGUAGE English val selection and has been greatly controversial in France. SUBTITLES REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) ‘London River succeeds as a portrait of those left to deal with the consequences of a dev- AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD. Institu- astating terrorist attack’ Jamie Steiner, On the Box tional and Home Use.

PARADISE NOW Palestine 2005 . Feature Film . 90 min Golden Globe winner Paradise Now is the story of two young Palestinian friends as they embark upon what may be the last 48 hours of their lives as they set out on a suicide strike on Tel Aviv. But their plan goes wrong, and the two friends are sepa- rated. An eye opener that maintains a tension and drama that makes it unmissable.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Hany Abu-Assad is a Palestinian film director. His filmography includes Paper Won Golden Globe Award. Nominated for the Oscar at the Academy Awards, USA House (1992), Curfew (1993), The 13th (1997), The Fourteenth Chick (1998), Rana’s in 2006. Won the Amnesty Int. Film Prize Wedding (2002), Paradise Now (2005), L.A. Cairo (2007) and Eleven Minutes. His at the Berlin Int. Film Festival in 2005. Won the European Film Award in 2005. Documentaries include: Dar 0 Dour (1990), Long Days in Gaza (1991), To Whom It Nominated for the Film Award in Gold in May Concern (1991), Onverwachte Natuur (1996), De Arabieren Van 2001 (1999), Germany 2006. Het Spijkerkwartier (2000), Nazareth 2000 (2000), Ford Transit (2002). LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English “Abu-Assad walks a fine line through a minefield of issues, all of them explored with intel- REGION 1 (U.S. and Canada) ligence and integrity”. Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD for Home Use. Institutional tbc.

POMEGRANATES AND MYRRH (AL MORR WAL RUMMAN) (Not yet available on DVD) Palestine 2009 . Feature Film . 95 min A young couple’s wedding is immediately followed by the arrest of the husband for resisting the confiscation of his land for the building of a new Israeli settlement. The film captures, within the microcosm of the couple’s life, how the struggles of a nation are superimposed on the lives of individuals, whether they want it or not. The arrival of a new instructor to the troupe where she is a dancer stirs in her feelings and de- sires that had been locked away with her husband.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Najwa Najjar is a filmmaker living in Palestine. Pomegranates and Myrrh San Sebastián International Film Festival 2008: Won Cinema in Motion Award. (2008) is her first feature film. Her previous works include several award-winning shorts shown at film festivals worldwide, including Yasmine Tughani, Naim and LANGUAGE Arabic Wadee’a, Quintessence of Oblivion, Blue Gold, A Boy Called Mohamad, and They SUBTITLES English Came From the East. REGION tbc AVAILABILITY tbc

www.zenithshoponline.com www.zenithshoponline.com

SALT OF THIS SEA (MILH HATHA AL BAHR) Palestine 2006 . Feature Film . 109 min Soraya, born in Brooklyn to Palestinian refugees, fulfills her life long dream of going to Palestine where she confronts distressing realities and her own anger. This film FEATURE FILMS FEATURE was Palestine’s submission to the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008.

Director Annemarie Jacir is a Palestinian filmmaker and poet. Her filmography includes A Few Crumbs for the Birds, and Post Oslo History. She was named one of Filmmaker magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema. Her short film, Like NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Twenty Impossibles, was selected in competition at Cannes and has won more than San Sebastian Int. Film Festival 2007 15 awards at international festivals. Salt of this Sea (2008) is her first feature film. Won Cinema in Motion Award. Dubai Int. Film Festival 2008 Won the Muhr Award. Carthage Film Festival 2008 Won the Ran- ‘Annemarie Jacir’s filmic vision is brilliant, emotional, intense and fresh. Salt of this Sea is da Chahal Prize. Festival of Asian & Arab absolutely one of the best films I’ve seen in years’Michael Moore, Director (Michael Moore’s

Cinema 2008 Won the Special Jury Prize. Institutional & Home Use list of Top 20 Best Films of 2009); LANGUAGE Arabic ‘Un film plus que necessaire’Pariscope; SUBTITLES English, German and French ‘Annemarie is the Palestinian Jim Jarmush. She has developed her own cinema language, REGION All AVAILABILITY Worldwide for stubborn acting style and unconventional story telling, disobeying all the rules of traditional DVD (except Switzerland). Download and streaming tbc. Institutional and Home Use. cinema.’ Hany Abu-Assad, Director Paradise Now.

SEEDS OF DOUBT (FOLGESCHADEN) (Not yet available on DVD) Egypt/Germany 2004 . Feature Film . 88 min Tariq, a scientist specialising in virus research, is an Algerian Muslim happily married to his German wife, and lives together with her and their young son in Hamburg. But their relationship comes under stress when the police suspect Tariq of being con- nected to one of the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks. A gripping film that shows how doubt can be contagious and poisonous, and challenges the unfairness and destructiveness of racial profiling.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Samir Nasr is of German and Egyptian origin. He studied filmmaking at the Won the Golden Gate Award for Best Film at the San Francisco Film Festival. Filmakademie Baden-Würtemberg and was a freelancer for the Egyptian film maga- Won the Naguib Mahfouz Prize at the zine ‘El-Fann El-Sabbe’ (The 7th art). Seeds of Doubt is his first feature film. Cairo Film Festival in 2005. LANGUAGE German SUBTITLES English ‘A gripping drama about how edgy people have become in the post 9/11world.’ REGION All AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use.

SHEHERAZADE, TELL ME A STORY (EHKY YA SCHAHRAZAD) (Not yet available on DVD) Egypt 2009 . Feature Film . 134 min

Karim and Hebba are a young married couple. Both have great careers. Karim is just about to be appointed as editor-in-chief of a leading government newspaper. Hebba is the presenter of a popular TV programme. Karim is told that he will only be appointed if his wife tones down her political topics and he persuades her to make programmes on ordinary people instead. But her “non-political” programs prove even more explosive to the authorities. NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Won the Lina Mangiacapre Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2009. Director Yousry Nasrallah is an Egyptian film director. He started his career in film LANGUAGE Arabic as a film critic and directing assistant in Beirut from 1978 to 1982. He moved back SUBTITLES English to Cairo and became assistant to Youssef Chahine, whose company Misr Inter- REGION tbc national would go on to produce his films. He directed 7 films between 1988 and AVAILABILITY DVD for Europe. Rest of the world tbc. Institutional and Home Use. 2009. His international awards include three Awards at the Lucarno International DVD RELEASE DATE After placement of Film Festival for El Medina in 1999. institutional orders. www.zenithshoponline.com

SILENCE OF THE PALACES (SAMT AL KUSSUR) (Coming Soon) Tunisia 1994 . Feature Film . 128 min Alia, played by a young Hind Sabri, is the daughter of a beautiful servant at the King’s

Palace, towards the end of French colonial rule in Tunisia. As she grows older she FILMS FEATURE starts to realise that sexual favours are required of her mother and other servants.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Mufida Tlatliis Tunisian. She shot to fame with her first feature film Silence Cannes Film Festival, 1994, won the Gold- en Camera Award. British Film Institue, of the Palaces which won international awards and critical acclaim. 1995, won the Sutherland Trophy Award. Carthage Film Festival, 1994, won the Tanit d’Or Award.Toronto Int. Film Festival,

1994, won the Int. Critic’s Award. Institutional & Home Use

LANGUAGE Arabic and French SUBTITLES English REGION tbc AVAILABILITY tbc

SON OF BABYLON (DVD release date after Spring 2011) Iraq 2009 . Feature Film . 100 min On hearing the news that Saddam has fallen and prisoners of war have been found alive in the South, young boy Ahmed and his grandmother set out from Northern Iraq on a long and difficult journey to find the boy’s missing father. The film not only brings to life an all too real story for Iraqis, it does so in a way that subtly and sensi- tively brings together Iraq’s divided communities and their need to forgive and move on.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Mohamed Al Daradji was born in Baghdad, Iraq. His first feature film was Berlin International Film Festival 2010, won the Amnesty International Film Prize Ahlaam, shot over four months in Baghdad in 2004, while the war was going on. His and Peace Film Award. Sundance Film experiences in filming in Iraq were in some sense more dramatic than the film itself, Festival 2010, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. and were captured in his documentary War, Love, God and Madness (2008). His latest film is the award winning Son of Babylon. LANGUAGE Kurdish and Arabic SUBTITLES English ‘A cinematic triumph...gained a standing ovation at the packed screening.’ The National REGION tbc AVAILABILITY tbc ‘I would urge everyone to see Son of Babylon. A beautiful, sensitive and astonishingly mature tale’ Gulf News

THE TIME THAT REMAINS (DVD release date after 11 October 2010) Palestine 2009 . Feature Film . 109 min A unique and deeply personal depiction of Palestine since 1948 from the internationally acclaimed director Elia Suleiman. This is the third film in his autobiographical trilogy starting with Chronicle of a Disappearance and Divine Intervention.

Director Elia Suleiman is a Palestinian film director and actor. His first two short films Introduction to the End of an Argument and Homage by Assassination won NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE numerous awards.In 1996, Suleiman directed Chronicle of a Disappearance, his first Cannes Film Festival, 2009, nominated for the Golden Palm Award. Mar del Plata feature film. It won the Best First Film Prize at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. In 2002, Film Festival, 2009, won the ACCA Jury Suleiman’s second feature film, Divine Intervention, won the Jury Prize and Critic’s Prize and Best Director Award and was nominated for the Best Film Award. Asia Prize at Cannes. His third autobiographical film The Time that Remains (2009) was Pacific Screen Awards, 2009, won the Jury nominated for a Golden Globe at the Cannes Film Festival (2009) and won interna- Grand Prize. tional awards. LANGUAGE Arabic, Hebrew and English SUBTITLES English ‘’Elia Suleiman’s conclusion to his trilogy about Israel and Palestine is frustrating yet REGION tbc breathtaking’’ Peter Bradshaw guardian.co.uk AVAILABILITY tbc www.zenithshoponline.com

UNDER THE BOMBS Lebanon 2006 . Feature Film . 96 min The 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon is the setting for this visceral drama which fol-

lows a mother’s frantic search, together with her dubious taxi driver, for her lost child FILMS FEATURE amongst Lebanon’s bomb-scarred ruins. The film was shot in real time amidst the devastation of the attacks, which has attracted controversy as well as acclaim.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Philippe Aractingi is Lebanese living between Beirut and Paris. He has Won EIUC Human Rights Film Award and ARCA Prize for Youths at the Venice Film made more than 40 films throughout his career, ranging from reports and documen- Festival (2007). Won Best Film Gold Muhr taries to more personal and fictional films, and feature film Bosta (2005). Award and Best Actress at the Dubai International Film Festival (2007). Institutional & Home Use ‘Stunning...Powerful...One of the Best Films You Will See About War’ Socialist Review LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English ‘Raw, painfully vivid, full of sharp detail and extremely moving’ The Observer REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY UK on DVD. Home Use Only. ‘Powerful...Tense road trip’ The Times

WEST BEIRUT (BEIRUT AL GHARBIEH) (DVDs being reprinted) Lebanon 1999 . Feature Film . 105 min Award winning right-of-passage tale set against the war torn city of Beirut in 1975 following the lives of three teenage friends. The war setting has the opposite effect from what one might expect, creating moments of great humour. Doueiri is masterful in his use of personal stories to capture darkly iconic moments in Lebanon’s history.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Ziad Doueiry was born in Lebanon in 1963. He cut his teeth as a camera The film has won the Prix François Chalais at the Directors’ fortnight of the assistant to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. He Cannes Film Festival in 1998. wrote and directed his first feature West Beirut which toured several festivals around the world, and then shot his second feature Lila Says (2004) in Marseille, France. He LANGUAGE Arabic is currently working on his third feature. SUBTITLES English REGION All ‘A totally infectious first film’Harpers & Queen AVAILABILITY Europe for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Rest of the world tbc. Institutional and Home Use. ‘Touches the child and adult in all of us’ Film of the Month ID

THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING (IMARAT YACOUBIAN) Egypt 2005 . Feature Film . 172 min Many lives, different stories, one city, one building…The Yacoubian Building. Adapted from the best selling novel of the same name, this Cairo buiding embodies wide reaching aspects of the capital, exploring love, power, sex, homosexuality, funda- mentalism and politics. The film is fascinating with its colourful spectrum of classes, characters, families and narratives, tackled with unflinching boldness and humour.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Marwan Hamed is a young Egyptian filmmaker. His first big-screen film, Official selection at Berlin International Lily, won prizes at Carthage and other festivals. Critics consider his most important Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. Won International Jury Award at Sao film to date to be Imarat Ya’qubian (2006, The Yacoubian Building ), which was cho- Paulo International Film Festival. sen as one of the hundred most important Egyptian films by a committee headed by the veteran critic Amed El-Hadari. LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English ‘Consistently compelling’ Empire REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD. Institu- ’A revealing window into the secular world of a modern Islamic country.’ tional tbc. The Hollywood Reporter www.zenithshoponline.com

THE YELLOW HOUSE Algeria / France 2007 . Feature Film . 83 min This subtle and picturesque tale is as much an ode to the Algerian countryside as it is a film about a man’s efforts to keep his family together. With a heartwarming FEATURE FILMS FEATURE naivety, Mouloud struggles to ease his family’s grief at the loss of their son in a car accident with gestures of love. He sets out to acquire a television, video, and electricity for the first time to watch a videotape message from his son. In his quests he encounters kindness of others, but ends up entangled in a bureaucratic nightmare.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Amor Hakkar is Algerian from the Aures. After living in France for years, Valencia Festival of Mediterranean Cin- he returned to Algeria in 2002 to burry his father. This painful return to the Aures ema 2007 Won the Golden Palm Award. Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema 2008 inspired his second feature film The Yellow House, which won awards and critical Won Asian and Arab Competition Award acclaim. and Best Actor. Institutional & Home Use LANGUAGE Arabic and Berber ‘Hakkar’s film is one of the finest films to emerge from North Africa in recent years. Hakkar SUBTITLES English, French and German has not just proved his mettle as a director but also as an interesting screenplay writer, REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) who is capable of merging tragedy with low-key visual humour that never goes overboard’ AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD. Institu- IMDB tional and Home Use.

ZAMAN: THE MAN FROM THE REEDS (Not yet available on DVD) Iraq / France 2003 . Feature Film . 77 min Set in Iraq under Saddam and during the international sanctions, Zaman and his wife live in a swamp region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. When Zaman’s wife becomes unwell, he decides to leave their sheltered life to travel to Baghdad looking for medication. A very difficult mission with medicine scarce under sanctions. Will he make it back home on time?

Director Amer Alwan is an Iraqi French film director. Alwan was forced to shoot his NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE movie Zaman, The Man From The Reeds on videotape, as when Iraq was under Won the Future Talent Award at the San severe economic sanctions, the United Nations would not allow Iraq to import 35 Sebastián International Film Festival, 2003. and 16 millimeter film stocks, because they believed that the materials contained some chemicals that could have been used to produce weapons of mass LANGUAGE Arabic destruction. He then transferred it to 35-millimeter film when he went back to Paris, SUBTITLES English where he has lived since 1980. He also had problems dealing with Iraqi REGION All government censors. AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional ‘The film’s strength rests on a successful blend of fiction and documentary techniques.’ and Home Use. Deborah Young, Tribeca Film www.zenithshoponline.com

BEIRUT DIARIES: TRUTH, LIES AND VIDEO (YAWMIYAT BEIRUT) Lebanon 2006 . Documentayry . 80 min Through the story of a young woman from Beirut and the experiences of her young friends, the film explores the crucial questions facing Lebanon in the volatile period

following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri to the eve of the massive DOCUMENTARIES Israeli war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Mai Masri is a Palestinian filmmaker living in Beirut, Lebanon. Won Best Documentary at Asia Pacific She has directed and produced many award-winning films that have been Screen Awards, Australia (2006) broadcast on more than 100 television stations worldwide and won over 60 LANGUAGE Arabic international awards. SUBTITLES English and French

REGION All Institutional & Home Use AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use.

CARIOCA (Coming Soon ) Egypt 2009 . Documentary . 60 min A cinematic tribute to the free spirited Tahia Carioca whose life is the subject of many modern myth. Veteran documentary filmmaker Nabiha Lotfy takes up the challenge in this rare treat. Carioca was not only a pioneering dancer and actress, who gave the craft dignity and legitimacy, she was also a rebel and a militant.

Director Nabiha Lotfy received her arts degree in 1957 from Cairo University and graduated from Cairo’s Higher Institute of Cinema in 1964. She directed more than LANGUAGE Arabic 50 feature films and a dozen documentaries, making her one of the most prolific SUBTITLES English female directors in Egyptian film history. She was also instrumental in the creation of REGION tbc AVAILABILITY DVD for Europe. Rest of the Association of Egyptian Women Filmmakers, which was formed in 1990. the world tbc. Institutional and Home Use.

EDWARD SAID: THE LAST INTERVIEW UK 2005 . Documentary . 208 min 28 sec Edward Said (1953-2003) was born in Jerusalem. Internationally acclaimed for his books on literature (Beginnings, The World The Text & The Critic), politics (The Ques- tion of Palestine, Covering Islam) and the intersection of politics and culture (Orien- talism, Culture and Imperialism), Said was also an accomplished musician. Diagnosed with incurable leukemia in 1991, Said stopped giving interviews for a long time. But in November 2002 he made a final exception, and over the course of three days spoke with unparalleled intimacy to Richard Glass about his illness, his LANGUAGE English work, his own life and eduction, and his enduring preoccupations. REGION All AVAILABILITY Worldwide on DVD for Director Mike Dibb has been directing films for television for forty years on subjects, Home Use. Institutional tbc. ranging from cinema and jazz to art, sport, literature and popular culture. ‘Riveting’ The Observer ‘A portrait of a man whose commitment - political, cultural and literary - still burns brightly’ Channel4.com , ‘Gripping and very affecting’ Sight and Sound ‘His conversation comes with an intellectual rigour that refuses to deliver snappy sound- bites or indulge in petty squabbling…A fitting tribute to Said’s life and work’BBCi -Films www.zenithshoponline.com

GARBAGE DREAMS Egypt 2009 . Documentary . 83 min This award winning documentary follows Cairo’s garbage collector class (Al Zaba- leen), bringing to life the foresight and value in their work, and their entrepreneurial spirit. DOCUMENTARIES

Director Mai Iskander is a film school graduate and started work as camera assistant on over a dozen features, such as Men in Black and As Good as it Gets, and over a hundred commercials and music videos. Later, she shot numerous shorts, NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE International Documentary Association commercials, documentaries, and TV shows. 2009 Won Humanitas Award. Phoenix Film Festival 2009 Won Audience Award and Copper Wing Award.Dubai International Film Festival 2009 Won Special Jury Prize. “Garbage Dreams is a moving story of young men searching for ways to eke out a living for their families and facing tough choices as they try to do the right thing for the planet. Mai LANGUAGE Arabic Iskander guides us into a ‘garbage village’, a place so different from our own, and yet the Institutional & Home Use SUBTITLES English REGION All choices they face there are so hauntingly familiar.’’ “Garbage Dreams makes a compelling AVAILABILITY UK only for DVD, down- case that modernisation does not always equal progress.” Al Gore loads and streaming for Home Use. Institutional tbc.

GAZA ON AIR Egypt / Palestine / France 2009 . Documentary . 90 min This rare documentary bares witness to atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza in 2009, defying the Israeli imbargo on journalists entering Gaza . A group of Palestin- ian journalists risked their lives to ensure the events in Gaza would reach the world but their footage has in fact been rarely seen. This bold and uncompromising documentary explicitly addresses and informs the ever current debate on whether graphic war scenes should be shown.

LANGUAGE Arabic Warning: The documentary contains scenes of extreme violence that might not be SUBTITLES English and French suitable for certain viewer sensitivities and is not for viewers under the age of 18. REGION All AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional Director Samir Abdallah is a Danish-Egyptian film maker and has been produc- and Home Use. ing independent and television documentaries since 1983. He founded the L’Yeux Ouverts (Eyes Open) association which organises workshops on film production and programming. Since 1994, he has collaborated on more than 3,000 partnerships with institutions worldwide.

I SEE THE STARS AT NOON Morocco 2004 . Documentary . 57 min An insight into the life of a clandestine in his journey to cross illegally from Morocco to Spain. This revealing documentary on the ever pressing issue of immigration is also a personal exploration by the filmmaker of the construction of documentary filmmaking and objectivity, asking where the line should be drawn between filmmaker and subject.

Director Saeed Taji Farouky is a freelance journalist, photographer and documen- LANGUAGE Arabic tary filmmaker. He is published in The Observer, The Telegraph, The Independent, SUBTITLES English Reuters, BBC Online, The Economist Group, Aljazeera online and Open Democracy, REGION All amongst others. He is Artist-in-Residence at the Tate Britain, a TED Fellow, and AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional co-director of the award-winning documentary production company Tourist With A and Home Use. Typewriter. ‘An excellent piece of work.’ Roger Thompson, BBC Storyville ‘A beautiful film.’ Jessica Linzey, The Frontline Club, London ‘One of the most poignant and relevent films on asylum I have seen.’ Charlie Devereux, OpenDemocracy.net www.zenithshoponline.com

MEMORIES OF RAS BEIRUT, WISH YOU WERE HERE Lebanon 2006 . Documentary . 51 min Through a 60’s lens award winning filmmaker Mahmoud Hojeij documents the memories of Ras Beirut, the heart of the Lebanese capital. It features historian Dr Kamal Salibi among many fascinating encounters that capture a golden age that in DOCUMENTARIES fact turned out to be the road to a bloody and long war.

Director Mahmoud Hojeij is an award winning videomaker, media professor and NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE photographer working and living in Beirut, Lebanon. He has a Ph.D. in Communica- The director has won Video Brazil First tions, M.A. in Media Studies. He edited three books on philosophy, photography Prize (2001), Golden Spire San Francisco and video: ‘In-Pose’, ‘Performing Images’ and ‘Transit Visa’. He participated in Int. Film Festival 1999, Palm D’or at the Palermo Int. Short Film Festival 1998. several workshops, festivals and exhibitions worldwide.

LANGUAGE Arabic Institutional & Home Use SUBTITLES English ‘A fresh, original and moving evocation of the rich and highly specific culture of Ras Beirut, REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) beautifully done.’ British Ambassador James Watt AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, ‘It is like Ras Beirut, stylish, joyful and yet educational’ Assad Fouladkar, filmmaker downloads and streaming. Institutional ‘A nervous tale of the joyfull ill-fated’ Mohamad Sueid, film critic and filmmaker and Home Use.

THE ONE MAN VILLAGE (SEMA’AN BIL DAY’A) Lebanon 2008 . Documentary . 86 min A moving story of farmer Semaan El Habre. As the only inhabitant of Ain El Hazaroun, a small village in Mount Lebanon, Semaan stubbornly remains, while other villagers, who fled during the 15-year civil war, have failed to return. An auteur documentary poignant and sophisticated in its portrayal of simplicity, and of the impact of the country’s bitter infighting on its villages and communities.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Simon El Habre is a Lebanese director. He graduated from the film school Hot Docs Canadian Int. Documentary in Beirut, and FEMIS in Paris where he specialised in film editing. His first docu- Festival 2009 Won Best Int. Documen- tary Award. Dubai Int. Film Festival 2008 mentary The One Man Village (2009) won at the Hot Docs Canadian International Won Special Jury Prize. Documentary Festival 2009 the International Documentary Award, and the Special LANGUAGE Arabic Jury Prize at the Dubai International Film Festival 2008. SUBTITLES English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Serbian REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) ‘A stunningly shot, poignant portrait of the sole remaining resident of a Lebanese moun- AVAILABILITY UK (and worldwide outside tain village.’ Edinburgh International Film Festival. M.E upon enquiry) for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional & Home Use.

REEL BAD ARABS HOW HOLLYWOOD VILLIFIES A PEOPLE USA 2006 . Documentary . 50 min This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic history that has run virtually unchallenged form the earliest days of silent film to today’s big- gest Hollywood blockbusters. Featuring acclaimed author Dr Jack Shaheen, the film explores a long line of degrading images of Arabs and why this matters.

Director Sut Jhally is a Professor of Communication at the University of Massachu- setts and founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation. LANGUAGE English SUBTITLES English and Arabic REGION All ‘Timely and salutary ... highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.’ AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, Library Journal downloads and streaming Institutional ‘Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hol- and Home Use. lywood’s ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs.’ Howard Rosenberg, Los Angeles Times TV Critic ‘Jack Shaheen is a one-man anti-defamation league who has exposed Hollywood’s deni- gration of Arabs in most, if not all, of its films.’ Helen Thomas, Journalist and Author www.zenithshoponline.com

REMNANTS OF A WAR Lebanon 2010 . Documentary . 75 min In the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, one million cluster bomb munitions rained down upon the fields, orchards and villages of South Lebanon. Director Jawad Metni

filmed for over two years in Southern Lebanon, spending months embedded with DOCUMENTARIES the demining teams in the field, and capturing moments of joy, anxiety, and resilience.

Director Jawad Metni has worked in documentary film and television for over 15 NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Won Best Documentary at the British years as a cinematographer, producer, editor and director. His credits include “The Independent Film Festival (2010) and Plutonium Circus” (1995), “Hell House” (2001), “Downwind” (2001), “Trading with the was part of the Official Selection for the New York Human Rights Watch, San Enemy” (2003), and “Rumble in Mumbai” (2004). Since 2004, he has worked as a Francisco Arab Film Festival. producer and editor for various projects for PBS and the History Channel. LANGUAGE Arabic and English Institutional & Home Use SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) ‘a masterpiece of documentary filmmaking’ Marc Makary, L’Orient Le Jour AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional ‘Intense visual and moral clarity’ The Village Voice and Home Use.

SLINGSHOT HIP HOP (Not yet available on DVD) Palestine 2008 . Documentary . 83 min Superb documentary featuring hip hop artists DAM, PR, Abeer, Mahmoud Shalabi and others. The home hitting lyrics of songs such as “Meen Irhabi” (‘Who Is The Terrorist”), downloaded over 1 million times on the internet, and the film’s ability to powerfully convey the life context of the performers under occupation, will appeal to all viewers, whether hip hop fans or not.

Director Jackie Salloum was inspired to start directing after hearing the music of NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Palestinian hip hop group, DAM, on the radio in New York. She made a music video Sundance Film Festival 2008 Grand Jury Prize Nomination. of their song “Who is the Terrorist?” for one of her graduate classes. The reaction this received propelled her to make her second documentary, Slingshot Hip Hop. LANGUAGE Arabic, English and Hebrew SUBTITLES English ‘The culture of hip hop and rap is at its most powerful and yet its most tender in Slingshot REGION All Hip Hop’ Chuck D, Public Enemy AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional ‘Engaging look at a fascinating Arab subculture’ Variety and Home Use. ‘Profoundly uplifting… It’s a refreshing take on the conflict’NOW Toronto

SO NEAR YET SO FAR (KARIB BA’ID) Lebanon 2002 . Documentary . 59 min In So Near Yet So Far Raheb undertakes an emotional journey tracing the forma- tive effect of the Palestinian cause on Arabs from different countries, whether they embrace or reject it.

LANGUAGE Arabic Director Eliane Raheb is an award winning Lebanese director who has directed two SUBTITLES English short fiction films The Last Screening (1995) and Meeting (1996), as well as 3 docu- REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, mentaries So Near Yet So Far (Karib Ba’id) 2002, Suicide (Intihar) 2003 and This is downloads and streaming. Institutional Lebanon (Hayda Lubnan) 2008. She is one of the founders of the cultural coopera- and Home Use. tive for cinema Beirut DC and is the artistic director of its Arab film festival Ayam Beirut al Cinemaiya. She teaches documentary filmmaking at the IESAV University, Beirut, since 2003. www.zenithshoponline.com

SUSPENDED DREAMS (AHLAAM MU’ALAQA) Lebanon 1992 . Documentary . 50 min Through the eyes of two Lebanese ex-militia fighters, a satirical playright and a woman searching for her kidnapped husband, Suspended Dreams tells the story of a Beirut community struggling to rebuild its shattered life after 16 years of war. DOCUMENTARIES

Directors Jean Chamoun and Mai Masri have produced and directed many award- winning films that have been broadcast on more than 100 television stations world- NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE wide, and won over 60 international awards. Won First Prize at IMA Film Festival, Paris, 1993. Won Golden Award at Damascus Film Festival, 1993 ‘A powerful documentary’ The Guardian

LANGUAGE Arabic ‘A moving and imaginative film that links four stories while stressing the distinctive SUBTITLES English and French Institutional & Home Use REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) experiences of the people at their heart’ The Independent AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional ‘Jean Chamoun and Mai Masri’s films are intense, passionate and always innovative’ and Home Use. Al Hayat

TAKE ME HOME (Coming Soon) Jordan 2008 . Documentary . 54 min An observational first person pilgrimage into the life of a Palestinian family forced to leave Palestine at the time of the formation of the state of Israel, and settle in Da- mascus, told through the voice of the Director’s grandmother. Lives that echo the dashed hopes and challenges of an entire generation of Palestinians, and events that changed the course of history for all.

LANGUAGE Arabic Director Mais Darwazah has worked in Amman, Cairo and Beirut in the fields of SUBTITLES English architecture, graphic design and documentary film. Darwazah’s independent film ca- REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) reer started with making short experimental films. Take Me Home (2008) is her first AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional feature length documentary. It was selected for screening at numerous and Home Use. international festivals.

THESE GIRLS (EL BANATE DOL) (Exclusive to our Online Viewing Service) Egypt 2006 . Documentary. 68 min A fresh, irresistibly lively, intensely engaging documentary from widely acclaimed Egyptian director Tahani Rached. It follows a band of homeless teenage girls, encountering rape, drug addiction, prostitution, pregnancy and motherhood on the streets of Cairo. An unsentimental portrait that avoids traps of guilt or cheap pity. Rached reveals an invisible world and offers a loving homage to the inspirational, fierce girls who inhabit it. Director Tahani Rashed was born in Egypt and lives in Quebec, where she studied NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Cannes Film Festival 2004 Won at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Montreal. She was involved in community action FIPRESCI Prize Critics Week. Jerusalem before making her first documentary Pour Faire Changement (1972). From 1980 to Film Festival 2004 Won Wolgin Award. Paris Biennal of Arab Cinema 2004 Won 2004 she was a staff filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada, tackling Special Jury Prize. subjects as diverse as war in Lebanon (Beirut! Not Enough Death to Go Round, 1983) and choir-singing (For a Song, 2001). LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English ‘Exhilarating… The filmmaker has a remarkable ability to delve into the intimate levels of AVAILABILITY Worldwide for download relationships with her subjects. Highly recommended for discussions on topics of women’s and streaming only. Institutional and agency, marginality, subjectivity, identity formation, power, and resistance.’ Educational Home Use. Media Reviews Online www.zenithshoponline.com

WAR, LOVE, GOD AND MADNESS (Not yet available on DVD) Iraq 2008 . Documentary . 72 min More than a mere ‘making of’ companion to the 2005 drama Ahlaam, War Love God and Madness provides a disturbing look at the situation in occupied Baghdad,

where safety is illusory, kidnapping and torture commonplace, and you are as much DOCUMENTARIES at risk from those meant to be protecting you.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Mohamed Al Daradji was born in Baghdad, Iraq. His first feature film was Participated at the Top Ten Audience Choice, Rotterdam IFF, 2008. Goteborg Ahlaam, shot over four months in Baghdad in 2004, while the war was going on. His International Film Festival, 2008. Tribeca experiences in filming in Iraq were in some sense more dramatic than the film itself, International Film Festival, 2008. and were captured in his documentary War, Love, God and Madness (2008). His latest film is award winning Son of Babylon.

LANGUAGE Arabic Institutional & Home Use SUBTITLES English REGION tbc AVAILABILITY tbc

20 www.zenithshoponline.com

BRIDE OF THE SOUTH (A’ROUSSAT AL JANOUB) Lebanon 2007 . Documentary . 33 min A young Lebanese woman living in Beirut returns to her border town village of Ain Ebel in South Lebanon seeking to understand why she feels no sense of connec- tion with it. A rare exploration of the issue of collaboration with Israel by some South Lebanese communities, and on what acts to divide or strengthen communal bonds. Pressing issues in a country that continues to be threatened by the spectre of sectar- ian fighting. & EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

WE RECOMMEND WITH THIS SHORT: The One Man Village (Doc 86 min) Director Nermine Haddad is a film student at the Institut d’études scéniques, au- and Remnants of a War (Doc 75 min) diovisuelles et cinématographiques – IESAV of the Université Saint-Joseph.

LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English REGION All AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use. Institutional & Home Use

MONA HATOUM UK 2005 . Documentary . 26 min Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum came to London from Lebanon in 1975. Working initially with performance and video, and in the 1990s with sculpture and installations, she has exhibited widely around the world. In the summer of 2000 Mona Hatoum presented three major works wich marked the inauguration of Tate Britain, London. These works, exhibited under the title ‘The Entire World as a Foreign Land’, developed Hatoum’s interest in the relationship between individual identity and the notion of a broader cultural and geographic identity, or sense of ‘belonging’. In an WE RECOMMEND WITH THIS SHORT: interview, illustrated with these works and with other key installations including Socle Edward Said The Last Interview (Doc 208 du Monde and Corps Etranger, Mona Hatoum explores the diverse sources of her min) and Palestine 2006 Short Film Collection (Shorts 35 min) work and her engagement with a wide range of often surprising materials. The artist talks vividly about the centrality of the body to her installations, and the ways in LANGUAGE English which her work employs changes of scale, intimations of restriction and constraint, SUBTITLES English and contradictory ideas of attaction and repulsion. REGION All AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use. www.zenithshoponline.com

PALESTINE 2006 SHORT FILM COLLECTION Palestine 2006 . Documentary . 35 min A mosaic of 13 short films less than 3 minutes in length, reflecting in one shot, the mood of summer 2006 in Palestine. Two of the shorts, ‘A World Apart Within 15 Minutes’ and ‘To The Arabs of Haifa A Special Message’ were selected for screening as part of BAFTA Goes to the Arab World 2008.

Red Dead and Mediterranean by Akram Al Ashkar, Security Leak by Rowan al Faqih, Checkmate by Amer Shomali, Flee by Ahmad Habash, Jenan by Riyad Deis, WE RECOMMEND WITH THIS SHORT: Coffee & Cigarettes by Ismael Habbash, Sound of the Street by Annemarie Jacir, Edward Said The Last Football on a Thursday Afternoon by Liana Badr, Trafic by Mohanad Yaqubi, Ferkesh Interview (Doc 208 min) and Mona (cancelled) by May Odeh, A World Apart within 15 minutes by Enas Muthaffar, To Hatoum (Doc 26 min) the Arabs of Haifa a Special Message by Razi Najjar, Not Just Any Sea by Nahed LANGUAGE Arabic Awwad. SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, ‘A unique collection of short films from across Palestine, delving into the personal, the downloads and streaming. Institutional political, and the poetic - the spirit of a people struggling for freedom’ and Home Use. The Palestinian Filmmakers Collective www.zenithshoponline.com

PHATWA (Not yet available on DVD) Iraq / Canada 2008 . Musical Comedy Short . 11 min Narcy is an Iraqi performer visiting the US from Canada, trying to make it in the rap game. When he tries to board a flight to New York with his friend Yushua - toper form at a music festival, Narcy is stopped by airport security. What happens next will make you laugh, bob your head, and question the fate of Arabs in America post-9/11. SHORTS & EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS

WE RECOMMEND WITH THIS SHORT: Director Hala Al Salman is a one-woman studio specialising in videojournalism and Slingshot Hip Hop (Doc 83 min) short documentaries. As a videojournalist she travelled across the Middle East producing news stories for Reuters TV and short documentaries for Current TV. In 2008 LANGUAGE Arabic and English she produced an online documentary series for the Canadian Broadcast Corpora- SUBTITLES English tion (CBC) and a short film ‘PHATWA’. REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use. Institutional & Home Use

SONS OF EILABOUN Palestine 2007 . Documentary . 25 min On October 30 1948, the Israeli army marched into the northern Galilee village of Eilaboun. The story of what happened next is told from direct accounts from survi- vors. The director has made this film to consign these events to memory in a world that seems intent to cover up or ignore them. An important documentary about stories form the Naqba (the catastrophe) resulting in disposession and dislocation of Palestinians for generations.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Hisham Zreiq (also spelled Zrake) is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker from Winner Best Doc. Film Al Awda Award’ 08 Nazareth. Sons of Eilaboun is his first documentary. WE RECOMMEND WITH THIS SHORT: Take Me Home (Doc 54 min), Stranger in My Home (Doc 37 min), This Palestinian Life (Doc 29 min) LANGUAGE Arabic and English ‘With pretty much very minimal means, Zreiq manages to deliver a very deep and SUBTITLES English, German and Arabic authentic reading of Palestinian history’ Gilad Atzmon - Atlantic Free Press. REGION All AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use.

STRANGER IN MY HOME Palestine 2007 . Documentary. 37 min The story of eight Palestinian Jerusalemite families that have been turned refugees in their own city. After 40 years, they revisit their homes, now occupied by Israelis, and recall the events that occurred in the Moghrabi Quarter of Jerusalem during the 1967 war. The documentary includes an interview with Israeli architect David Kroyanker who wrote books about these houses.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Sahera Dirbas was born in Haifa in 1964, has published three books about Won Best Short Documentary at Amal EuroArab Film Festival, Spain 2009. destroyed Palestinian villages, and works as a freelance TV producer & independent WE RECOMMEND WITH THIS SHORT: researcher for foreign TV networks. Take Me Home (Doc 54 min), This Pales- tinian Life (Doc 29 min), Sons of Eilaboun (Doc 25 min) LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use. www.zenithshoponline.com

THIS PALESTINIAN LIFE Palestine 2009 . Documentary . 29 min This Palestinian Life focuses on the ’sumoud’- the Arabic term for perseverance and steadfastness- of the Palestinian nonviolent struggle against Israeli occupation and ongoing illegal annexation of Palestinian land. Director Philip Rizk is an Egyptian freelance journalist living in Cairo, Egypt. From

2005 to 2007 he lived in Gaza and worked with various NGOs carrying out relief and & EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS development projects. He graduated from Wheaton College in 2004, with a Bach- WE RECOMMEND WITH THIS SHORT: elors of Arts in Philosophy and has done post graduate studies in anthropology and Take Me Home (Doc 54 min), Stranger in Middle East studies. In February 2009, he was kidnapped by Egyptian state security My Home (Doc 37 min), Sons of Eilaboun for participating in nonviolent, Gaza-related protests. In Palestine, the communities (Doc 25 min) practicing sumoud - one particular form of nonviolent resistance - inspired Philip to LANGUAGE Arabic make a documentary film to tell some of their stories. SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) ‘A beautifully conceived short documentary’ Kate Dannies. Daily News Egypt. AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, downloads and streaming. Institutional and Home Use. Institutional & Home Use

WWW.GILGAMESH.21 Iraq 2007 . Experimental . 52 min This experimental docu-film is an internet based conversation between Tariq in Copenhagen and Basim in Baghdad. Incorporating elements of surrealism and much humour, the pair’s contrasting lives in their respective cities are focal points for their conversations, together with a supposed attempt at a virtual production of Gilgamesh. The low quality of the images in the DVD reflect the use of the internet and computer cameras, and the frequent electricity cuts in Baghdad. They are an integral part of the story and the film. LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English REGION 2 (Europe, M.E., Africa) Director Tariq Hashim studied theatre in Baghdad, and has a Masters in cinema AVAILABILITY Worldwide for DVDs, from the Sofia Film Institute (Bulgaria). Iraqi-born Hashim now lives in Denmark downloads and streaming. Institutional where he has worked for local channels and produced many short films. His film 16 and Home Use. Hours in Baghdad won the Golden Hawk Award at the 2004 Rotterdam Arab Film Festival. www.zenithshoponline.com

A CIGARETTE AND A DRINK (or A CIGARETTE AND A GLASS) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1955 . Feature Film . 112 min

(CIGARA WA KASS) CLASSICS A classic 1950’s film starring the famous singer Dalida and featuring her unreleased song “La Luna Negra”, and belly dance by the marvelous Samia Gamal. It is the story of Hoda, a famous dancer who gives up the spotlight to marry and start a family with Mamdouh, a handsome young doctor who is just beginning his career. When Mamdouh’s scheming Italian head nurse Yolanda, played by Dalida, sets her sights on Mamdouh, Hoda’s jealousy drives her to drink, ultimately endangering everything she holds dear. An enchanting example of Egyptian melodrama. STARRING Dalida, Samia Gamal and Nabil Al Alfi Director Niazi Mostafa was making films in Egypt for over half a century, from the mid-thirties until 19 October 1986, when he was found murdered in his apartment, a LANGUAGE Arabic Institutional & Home Use SUBTITLES English and French crime that remains unsolved to this day. After graduation, he trained at UFA Studios REGION tbc in Berlin (1932), then worked as assistant to German director Rupert Volmut. When AVAILABILITY Europe Studio Misr was built, Mustafa was appointed chief editor and supervised the pro- DVD RELEASE DATE DVDs for Europe (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional duction of the early issues of the Egypt Newsreel. His considerable talent and grasp and Home Use. of cinematic language marked him out as an important figure in the industry. He was greatly prolific and his works include 77 films.

A MAN IN OUR HOUSE (FI BAYTINA RAGUL) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1961 . Feature Film . 159 min Omar Sharif, with his characteristicaly brilliant acting, plays the role of a charismatic young man staking his life for his cause. Set in an era different from ours, the film is a reminder of older conflicts and the passions animating them. The anti-colonial resistance portrayed in the film ended in the exile of the puppet King Farouk in 1954 and the rise to power of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The film begins with the assassination of the King’s prime minister by a revolutionary youth Ahmed Hamdi (the young Omar Sharif). Fleeing the police, Hamdi seeks refuge with an apolitical, middle-class STARRING Omar Sharif and Egyptian family who risk much in hiding the fugitive. This film has been compared to Rushdy Abaza Fritz Lang’s ‘Hangmen Also Die’. LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English Director Henri Barakat was one of the foremost film directors in Egypt, making 58 REGION tbc feature films between 1942 and 1984. For decades, he directed some of the most AVAILABILITY Europe famous performers of the Arab world, winning international aclaim for some of DVD RELEASE DATE DVDs for Europe his works. (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional and Home Use. ‘Most of the acting is impressive, and one gets something of a sense of middle-class Egyptian mores of the period.’ IMDB

AL MEDAQ ALLEY (ZUKQAQ AL MIDAQ) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1963 . Feature Film . 125 min An adaptation of one of Naguib Mahfouz’s early novels, and one of his most popular. The film explores the complex lives of the lower-class residents of Midaq Alley, and specially that of the beautiful and intreaging lead character, who leaves it hoping for love and a better life in the wealthier side of town. But what will she find instead? The film weaves in reminders of a bustling Cairo at the time of the king, and echoes of colonialism and the second world war, through the inclusion of some British army characters. NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE An adaptation of novel by Nobel Prize Director Hassan Al Imam was a prominent Egyptian film director. His filmography For Literature winner Naguib Mahfouz includes ‘Time of Love’ (1986), ‘Khally Ballak Men Zouzou’ (1972), ‘The Nun’ (1965), STARRING Shadia and Salah Qabil ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ (1964), ‘The Miracle’ (1963), ‘Life is Like That’ LANGUAGE Arabic (1961) and ‘Divine Love’ (1960) amongst 65 feature films. SUBTITLES English REGION tbc Naguib Mahfouz is the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. AVAILABILITY Europe DVD RELEASE DATE DVDs for Europe Awarded to Mahfouz in 1988, the Nobel Prize brought international recognition to (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional and a writer who was already immensely popular in Egypt and throughout the Arabic- Home Use. speaking world. www.zenithshoponline.com

CAIRO 30 (Al Kahira Thalatin) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1966 . Feature Film . 135 min CLASSICS A collaboration between director Salah Abu Seif and Nobel Laureate author Naguib Mahfouz, Cairo 30 follows the life of a new graduate who strikes a Faustian pact with a minister. In return for a good position, a plush appartment and promotion, he agrees to marry the minister’s mistress so that they can conduct their affair in all discretion. Thrust in a life together, he and the mistress find much in common in their chosen lives and develop feelings for one another. What will become of them and the corrupt minister?

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Salah Abu Seif is one of the most important directors in the realist genre in Egypt. An adaptation of novel by Nobel Prize For Literature winner Naguib Mahfouz He collaborated on seven films with Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Seif’s 1977 film El Sakka Mat (The Water Carrier Is Dead) (1977) won him “Best Film of the Year” Institutional & Home Use STARRING Soad Hosni and Ahmad Mazhar. from the Egyptian Film Association. LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English Naguib Mahfouz is the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. REGION tbc Awarded to Mahfouz in 1988, the Nobel Prize brought international recognition to AVAILABILITY Europe a writer who was already immensely popular in Egypt and throughout the Arabic- DVD RELEASE DATE DVDs for Europe (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional speaking world. and Home Use. 25

CHASED BY THE DOGS (AL LISS WAL KILAB) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1962 . Feature Film . 125 min Based on a novel by Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, the film tells the story of Mah- ran, a thief who quickly ascends to be the head of his gang. However, his second in command conspires against him, and takes his position, marries his wife and becomes father to his beloved daughter. After his prison term, Mahran is thirsty for revenge but is chased by the police. He takes refuge with a prostitute that he knew of old and who loves him. But is retribution at the hands of the law inevitable?

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Director Kamal El Sheikh was one of the leading directors of the Realist genre in Nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Egypt, and notable for his thrillers and films noirs such as House No 13 (1952), Festival in1963. internationally acclaimed Life or Death (1955), and Chased by the Dogs (1962). STARRING Shukry Sarhan and Shadia. Naguib Mahfouz is the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. LANGUAGE Arabic Awarded to Mahfouz in 1988, the Nobel Prize brought international recognition to SUBTITLES English a writer who was already immensely popular in Egypt and throughout the Arabic- REGION tbc AVAILABILITY Europe DVD RELEASE DATE DVDs for Europe speaking world. (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional and Home Use.

FATMA (Coming Soon) Egypt 1947 . Feature Film . 130 min Starring legendary singer Um Kalthum in the role of Fatma, a poor nurse struggling to survive in Cairo. She falls in love with Fathi, a young upper class man. Society of the time did not accept inter-class relationships, so the couple face major obstacles if they want to be together. The film features nine of Um Kalthum’s most famous songs with lyrics by Beiram El Tounsi and Ahmad Rami and music by Zakariya Ahmad, Riad El Soumbati, and Mohammad El Qasabji.

NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Film by Cannes Grand Prix nominated director Ahmed Badrakhan. Director Ahmed Badrakhan was an Egyptian film director and screenwriter. He STARRING Um Kalthum. directed 41 films between 1936 and 1968 including Fatma and ‘A Night of Love’ LANGUAGE Arabic 1951 which was nominated for the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952. SUBTITLES English REGION tbc AVAILABILITY Europe DVD RELEASE DATE DVDs for Europe (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional and Home Use. www.zenithshoponline.com

GOSSIP ON THE NILE (or A DRIFT ON THE NILE) (THARTHARA FAWQA AL NIL) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1971. Feature Film . 115 min CLASSICS A landmark of Egyptian cinema, the film is based on the novel by Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel Laureate author. It tells the story of a group of upper-class friends who gather for a night of hedonistic celebration on an ornate houseboat. Visited by a young reporter, who wants to write a journalistic piece on the group, they are con- fronted by their growing awareness of their alienation. Set in 1967 the film offers a glimpse of an aristocracy painfully aware of their impending demise.

STARRING Adel Adham, Mervat Amin, Magda El-Khatib and Imad Hamdi.

LANGUAGE Arabic Director Hussein Kamal was an Egyptian television, film and theatre director. He is Institutional & Home Use SUBTITLES English generally considered one of the most important directors of classic Egyptian cinema. REGION 2 One of his most famous films is Gossip on the Nile. AVAILABILITY DVDs for Europe (the rest of the world tbc). Institutional and Home Use. ‘I have seen this movie about 7 times or may be more and I can’t stop watching it ..’ IMDB

THE LAST NIGHT (AL LAYLA AL AKHIRA) (Exclusive to our Online Viewing Service) Egypt 1963 . Feature Film . 130 min Legendary actress Faten Hamama plays an upper class lady who wakes up on the morning of her daughter’s wedding with memory loss - or is it that she is actually regaining her memory after 15 years of thinking she was someone else? Despite her husband’s protestations, she insists on visiting Alexandria where she tries to retrace remembered fragments. She finds that her home was destroyed in a bomb blast and someone was killed in it. As her memories strengthen so does the danger to her life from those who feel threatened by them. The suspense is maintained to the end NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE in this classic thriller from the Golden age of Egyptian cinema. Nominated for the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1964. Director Kamal El Sheikh was one of the leading directors of the Realist genre in STARRING Faten Hamama. Egypt, and notable for his thrillers and films noirs such as House No 13 (1952), the internationally acclaimed Life or Death (1955), and Chased by the Dogs (1962). LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES Not available AVAILABILITY Worldwide download and streaming only. Institutional and ‘One of the best thrillers in Egyptian cinema.’ IMDB Home Use.

LIFE OR DEATH (HAYAT AW MOWT) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1955 . Feature Film . 95 min Unusual for its era, this film was shot on location in the streets of Cairo, providing us with a rare glimpse of its streets and life in the 1950s. This thriller by the master of the genre, Kamal El Sheikh, is centred around a little girl trying to help her father by taking it upon herself to find him medicine when taken ill at home. Finding the near- by pharmacy closed, she travels across Cairo in a race against time, and without any money apart from the price of the medicine, looking for another chemist that would be open at that hour. When finally there, the chemist dispenses the wrong medicine NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE- by error. Realising his mistake he tries to trace her steps. But will he find her in time? Nominated for the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955. Director Kamal El Sheikh was one of the leading directors of the Realist genre in STARRING Imad Hamdi, Youssef Wahbi and Madiha Yousri Egypt, and notable for his thrillers and films noirs such as House No 13 (1952), the internationally acclaimed Life or Death (1955), and Chased by the Dogs (1962). LANGUAGE Arabic SUBTITLES English AVAILABILITY DVDs for Europe. Rest of the world tbc. Institutional and Home Use. www.zenithshoponline.com

PASSION AND REVENGE (GHARAM WA INTIKAM) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1944 . Feature Film CLASSICS Starring the glamorous Diva Asmahan in a role that strangely resembles her real life fate. Asmahan died before the film was completed and, her character was killed off in the same manner as her real life death, in a car accident. She plays a famous singer giving her last performance as she decides to marry an aristocrat and retire from her performing career. He is shot dead and she thinks she knows who is responsible and vows to prove it and avenge him. As she does so, she discovers that her accused is more deserving of her love than her husband. Asmahan’s life, now intertwined with this STARRING Asmahan and Youssef Wahbi film, was more dramatic than any fiction. She was believed to be a double agent working for the British, and her death was viewed as suspicious. Daughter of a Druze Syrian LANGUAGE Arabic

SUBTITLES English leader, she was under the patronage of King Farouk of Egypt and was considered a Institutional & Home Use AVAILABILITY DVDs for Europe. threat by rival diva Um Kalthum. She sings some of her most famous songs in the film Rest of the world tbc. Institutional and Passion and Revenge, making it an important record of her performances. The songs Home Use. include When Will You Realise (Imta Ha Ta’ref Imta) and Nights of Vienna (Layali Vienna).

Youssef Wahbi was an Egyptian actor and film director, a leading star of the 1930s and ‘40s and a prominent stage actor for four decades.

THE BLAZING SKY (or STRUGGLE IN THE VALLEY) (SIRAA FIL WADI) (Coming Soon) Egypt 1954 . Feature Film . 105 min This film was part of the Cannes International Film selection of 1954, propelling Omar Sharif to stadom in his first ever role. Co-starring with Faten Hamama, the two went on to marry in real life. Sharif plays the role of Ahmad, a wealthy landowner’s son in love with the daughter of a rival landowner Amal (Hamama). Unbeknown to them, Amal’s father frames Ahmad’s father with the murder of his business partner and he is hanged for this. A love story that is also a fascinating portrayal of class relations in Egypt between landowners and peasents. NOMINATIONS & AWARDS INCLUDE Cannes Film Festival, 1954, nominated for the Grand Prize of the Festival. Director Youssef Chahine, winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, is possibly the world’s most renowned Egyptian and Arab STARRING Omar Sharif and Faten filmmaker. His most critically acclaimed film is Cairo Station (1958). Among other Hamama important Chahine films are The Land (1969), Son of the Nile (1951) and The Blaz- LANGUAGE Arabic ing Sky (1954). His Alexandria films are first to be autobiographical in nature, and SUBTITLES English controversial for their homoeroticism. The most outstanding of the four is Alexandria, AVAILABILITY DVDs for Europe. Rest of the world tbc. Institutional and Home Use. Why? (1978), which won the special Jury Prize at the 1979 Berlin Film Festival. www.zenithshoponline.com

ARABOLOGY by YAS MUSIC Lebanon 2009 The first single from Aräbology is Yasmine Hamdan’s debut collaboration with Madonna’s producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï or YAS. Previously, Yasmine Hamdan was in the innovative Lebanese band Soap Kills with Zeid Hamdan since 1997.

TRACKS

1. Arabology, 2. Get It Right, 3. Institutional & Home Use Yaspop, 4. Oloulou, 5. Da, 6. Azza, 7. Coit Me, 8. Ma Rida, 9. Gamil, 10. Fax, 11. Mahi, 12. A Man.

BATER by SOAPKILLS Lebanon 2001

A cult group, Soapkills is an indie electro-pop band based in Lebanon. The group was formed in October 1997 when Zeid Hamdan and Yasmin Hamdan, both born in Beirut in 1976 but not related, decided to explore and combine their interest in classical Arabic song and electronic music. The group performs sensual music that draws much of its inspiration from Arabic song. The band appears on several com- pilations, has recorded the albums Bater and Cheftak, and has performed in Paris, TRACK S Berlin, Syria, Algeria, Congo, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Sydney. 1. Lé Zaalen?, 2. Zizi, 3. Cheat On Me, 4. Coit Me, 5. Coit Me (Zeid Mix), 6. Yahoo!, 7. Follow, 8. While You Are Rehearsing, 9. Flower Juice, 10. Enlarge It, 11. Frères

CHANT TRADITIONNEL MARONITE by SOEUR MARIE KEYROUZ Lebanon 2004 Sister Marie Keyrouz (also spelled “Kairouz”) is from Lebanon. Raised in the Maronite Church, she took holy orders in the Melchite (Byzantine Rite Catholic) Church. Keyrouz earned a joint doctorate in musicology and anthropology from the Sorbonne in Paris in 1991. She has engaged in a lifelong quest for a variety of so- called “Oriental” Christian chants, mostly preserved in Greek and Arabic manuscript sources and through oral tradition. Her albums are astonishing for their ancient repertoire and for Keyrouz’s incredible virtuosity. Her debut album was Chant Byzantin TRACKS1. Glory to the Word of God, 2. Let us come to proclain the happiness of Mary, 3. The young dove bears the eagle, 4. A house, manger!, 5. Work(s) (1989). Since then Keyrouz has produced a number of albums including Maronite Ya bikra-l-’abi (Syrian Catholic) / Ja’al ilahou / Nashduka-sh-shoukran, 6. Qanoun, variations, 7. Work(s) Hallel / Qadish qadish / Mshiho dabyaldéh, 8. O mother of Chant, Melchite Chant, Milanese Chant and Gregorian Chant. In some cases she God, O gentle mother, 9. I am the afflicted mother, 10. Nay, variations, 11. On the eve of his passion, 12. At daybreak Abraham led his only son 13. Upon the Cross, the Son of God gave up the ghost, 14. Work(s) Yawmou- is accompanied by L’Ensemble de la Paix, a small band of Arabic instrumentalists. sh-sharr / Rabbi-Imadhbouh, 15. Ud, variations, 16. Work(s) Ayyouha-r-Rabbou Ilahuna / Fawqa-s-Salib / Moubarakun man fadana, 17. Mary has appeared Keyrouz is founder of L’Instituit International de Chant Sacré (International Institute before the cross,18. Work(s) Halléluia / Qama-l-lahou min mathwahou / Qadishat aloho, 19. He is arisen and the darkness has vanished, 20. Inna-l-masih qad qum, 21. Alleluia. Ha-Houwadha-lAruç, 22. Exapostilarion de l’Office de Mardi Saint: of Holy Songs) in Paris, which promotes research into ancient sacred song on a “Innani’Uchachidu khidraka” Arabic version, 23. Exapostilarion de l’Office de Mardi Saint: “Innani’Uchachidu khidraka” Greek version, 24. Exapostilarion de l’Office de worldwide basis. Mardi Saint: “Innani’Uchachidu khidraka” Arabic version , 25. Ya Rabbi 26. Iqbalni-l-yawm, Kinonikon (Chant de Communion) from the liturgy for Holy thursday 27. Inna Yousof (Tropaires des Martines de Samedi Saint), 28. Alyawma-’Ulliga (14th Antienne de l’Office de Vendredi Saint), 29. Tagaridh (excerpts from the Canon de Samedi Saint), 30. Hymne à la sainte Vierge, de la Liturgie de saint Basile, 31. Office Pascal Cristos anesti, 32. Chant qui remplace le Trisaghion, 33. Inna-l malak qad qam www.zenithshoponline.com

CHEFTAK by SOAPKILLS MUSIC Lebanon 2002

A cult group, Soapkills is an indie electro-pop band based in Lebanon. The group was formed in October 1997 when Zeid Hamdan and Yasmin Hamdan, both born in Beirut in 1976 but not related, decided to explore and combine their interest in classical Arabic song and electronic music. The group performs sensual music that draws much of its inspiration from Arabic song. The band appears on several com- pilations, has recorded the albums Bater and Cheftak, and has performed in Paris, TRACKS Berlin, Syria, Algeria, Congo, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Sydney.

1. Aranis, 2. Cheftak, 3. Tango, 4. Institutional & Home Use Kazdoura, 5. Marcoslow, 6. Wadih, 7. Dub4Me, 8. Rnbullshit.

CROSSING INTO THE ELECTRIC MAGNETIC by HALIM EL DABH Egypt 2001 Artist Halim El-Dabh is internationally regarded as Egypt’s foremost living composer of classical music, and one of the major composers of the twentieth century. Among his compositions are eleven operas, four symphonies, numerous ballets, concertos, and orchestral pieces, film scores, music for plays, chamber and electronic works, music for jazz and rock bands, works for young performers, and pieces for various combinations of African, Asian, and Western instruments. His extensive eth- nomusicological researches, conducted on several continents, have led to unique TRACKS creative syntheses in his works, which, while utilising contemporary compositional 1. Electronic Fanfare, 2. Alcibiadis’ techniques and new systems of notation, are frequently imbued with Near Eastern, Monologue to Socrates, 3. Wire Recorder Piece, 4.Michael and African, or Ancient Egyptian aesthetics. El-Dabh has also created new systems of the Dragon, 5.Meditation in White notation for the darbucca, and has revived interest in Ancient Egyptian (Pharaonic) Sound, 6.Pirouette,7.Element, language and musical notation. In 1958 he was invited to join the first group of com- Being and Primeval, 8.Electronics posers at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City. A CD and the Word, 9.Venice, 10.Leiyla compilation of many of these pioneering electronic works, entitled Crossing Into the Visitations Electric Magnetic, was released in 2001. In 2005, he was honored as “the father of electronic music in Africa.”

DABKEH 2020 by OMAR SOULEYMAN Syria 2009

Artist Omar Souleyman is a Syrian musical legend. Since 1994, he and his musicians have emerged as a staple of folk-pop throughout Syria. To date, they have issued more than five-hundred studio and live- recorded cassette albums. His music has reached a wider audience in recent years due to the American label Sublime Frequencies, which released three of his records, which he also performed on tours. Omar Souleyman is a man of striking integrity who describes his style as his own TRACKS and prides himself on not being an imitator or a sellout. 1. A Style Of Sung Folk Poetry, 2. I Will Make A Trap, 3. I Saw Her, 4. I’ll Prevent The Hunters From Hunting You, 5. Beautiful Woman, 6. People’s Hearts, 7. I Will Pick A Flower From Your Cheek), 8. Drinking From The Glass Of Bitterness. www.zenithshoponline.com

HALALIUM by U-CEF MUSIC Morocco 1999

‘One of the most ambitious and best-executed fusions of ethnic traditionalism and urban futurism I’ve ever heard’ Chicago Reader

‘U-Cef hasn’t just combined these elements to jump on the ‘world music’ band- wagon, he’s done it to bring the honoured tradition of Arabic music into the 21st century. Needless to say, he does it with finesse’DJ Magazine

TRACKS

1. The Moorish Matador, 2. Aalash ‘Exhilarating, entertaining, educative - and utterly extraordinary’ The Times (UK) Institutional & Home Use Kwawna, 3. Tagazoot, 4. Hijra, 5. Gazel Fatma, 6 Halal Monk, 7. Marrakech ‘We’ve heard that whole Arabic jungle fusion thing fifty times and it hasn’t Raggamuffins, 8. Bouhala, 9. DJ Faisal worked. Well, this time, it works!’’ Trax (France) on the 1’N’2,10. Maghreb Ca Passe ou ca Kasse, 11. Sonic Moor,12. Gnasaid. ‘A milestone’ Blue Rythm (Germany)

‘Here comes the world music of the new millennium’ Oor

HUMAN FRIENDLY NOISES by SCRAMBLED EGGS Lebanon 2002 Scrambled Eggs came together in Beirut in 1998 and delivered their first album ‘Hu- man Friendly Noises’ in 2002. Characterised by a spacious ambient rock mood, the influences on the album range from British alternative and progressive rock to more aggressive strands of American rock and pop. This first album had a great influence among the Lebanese rock scene.

Their second album ‘No Special Date, Nor A Deity To Venerate’, establishing their TRACKS individual musical identity, a mesh of guitars and noises, pushing to the extreme the 1. 6 mg, 2. Mother System, 3. Bless search for harmony in chaos. In 2004 the band created its own record label, “Those The Machine, 4. Imm Walid, 5. El Kids Must Choke”, and released their third album, ‘Nevermind Where, Just Drive’. Presidente, 6. Ship Wreck, 7. Plan 9 This was the band’s most experimental effort yet, blending elements of noise and To Outer Space, 8. Sleep free improvisation. In 2005, Scrambled Eggs made the soundtrack of the Lebanese film ‘A Perfect Day’. The album received the Best Soundtrack Award at the Festival des Trois Continents in Nantes (France). The group released its fourth album in 2006 as an abrasive reaction to the brutal “July War” that shook Lebanon that year.

JAZEERA NIGHTS by OMAR SOULEYMAN Syria 2010

Omar Souleyman is a Syrian musical legend. Since 1994, he and his musicians have emerged as a staple of folk-pop throughout Syria. To date, they have issued more than five-hundred studio and live- recorded cassette albums. His music has reached a wider audience in recent years due to the American label Sublime Frequencies, which released three of his records, which he also performed on tours. Omar Souleyman is a man of striking integrity who describes his style as his own TRACKS and prides himself on not being an imitator or a sellout. 1. I Will Dig Your Grave With My Hands, 2. The Bedouin Tattoo 3.Stab My Heart 4. All the Girls Are Engaged, 5. My Tears Will Make the Stones Cry, 6. I Signal, You Deny, 7. I Beg You, Baby, 8. I Don’t Know / Like the Sugar in the Tea, 9. From The Day That I Told You) www.zenithshoponline.com

KHARTESH AA ZAMAN (L’HOMME DE GAUCHE) by RAYESS BEK MUSIC Lebanon 2010 Rayess Bek is one of the founders of Rap and Hip Hop in Arabic. He adapted Rap music to his background and created his own sound and style. His lyrics - always polished, sharp and committed - speak about Lebanon, its crisis, its war, its youth and disillusionment with politics by the new generation.

Rayess Bek, with his band Aks’ser, released two albums “Ahla Bi Chabeb” in 2000 and “Khartouch” in 2002. In 2003, Rayess Bek released his first solo album ‘A’am TRACKS behkeh bil sokout’ as independent and went on tour throughout the Middle-East 1. 30, 2. La Min?, 3. Khartesh Aa and Europe. In 2004, the band Aks’ser got signed to EMI and released their third Institutional & Home Use Zaman, 4. Samm, 5. Intikhabet 09, album Aks’ser in 2005. 6.Manem, 7. Baghdad, 8. Rap?, 9. Keskonatten?, 10. L’homme de Rayess Bek was featured in a 2007 PBS documentary “Dissonance and Harmony” Gauche, 11. Musulman, 12. Herbes Folles, 13. Mon 14. Ca Va Mal, 15. for the series “America at a Crossroad”. The film captures the process of Wael’s col- Schizophrenia laboration with Nile Rogers, Rza from the Wu-Tang Clan and Shavo from System of the Down as well as Rayess’ live performance at the Roxy.

Mashrou3 Leila Lebanon 2009

Mashrou3 Leila is Arabic for ‘an overnight project’. It started out as a music work- shop at the American University of Beirut in 2008, an open platform for students of architecture and design to experiment with sounds and make things audible. Haig Papazian, Carl Gerges, Hamed Sinno, Omaya Malaeb, Andre Chedid, Firas Abou Fakher and Ibrahim Badr sustained their collective as Mashrou3 Leila, an experiment. You can hear cascading melts of masculine vocals, only suspended with thrusts of violin; beats and bass attacked by melodies sometimes neurotic, some- TRACKS times tender, and even sometimes on pause. Through the music, you can smell 1. Fasateen, 2. 3ubwa, 3. Min Al Taboor, 4. 3al 7ajiz, 5.Shim El Yas- where Leila has been, in bed sheets, on sidewalks, and spilled coffee on dresses. mine, 6. Im Bimbillila7, 7. Latlit, 8. Khaleeha Zikra, 9. Raksit Leila

MASLAKH 03 Live in Beirut by Peter Brötzmann and Michael Zerang Lebanon 2005 Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and saxophonist and is among the most important European free jazz musicians.He has appeared on well over 100 albums and released over 30 albums as band leader.

Michael Zerang is a first generation American of Assyrian decent. He has been a professional musician, composer, and producer since 1976, focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet and experimental TRACKS 1. Illusion Of Progress, 2. Yalla Khou- theater, and international musical forms. He has received three Joseph Jefferson loud, 3. A Daytime Nightmare, 4. Ban- Awards for Original Music Composition in Theater, in 1996, 1998, and 2000. He has yan Revolution. over sixty titles in his discography and has toured nationally and internationally. He was the artistic director of the Link’s Hall Performance Series from 1985-1989 where he produced over 300 concerts of jazz, traditional ethnic folk music, electronic music, and other forms of forward thinking music. He continued to produce concerts at Cafe Urbus Orbis from 1994-1996, and at his own space, The Candlestick Maker in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, from 2001 - 2005. He continues to play, teach and record music. www.zenithshoponline.com

MASLAKH 04 THE ADVENTURES OF NABIL FAWZI by GENE COLE- MUSIC MAN - RAED YASSIN Lebanon 2006 Gene Coleman is a composer, musician and artistic director. He has created over 40 works for various instrumentation, often-using complex notations and improvisation in the same score. Radical use of the instrument’s sound producing possibilities makes Coleman, both as a composer and as a performer, a musician who seeks a greater synthesis between sound (or noise) and music. Since 2001 his work has focused on globalisation and music’s relationship with architecture and video. He has an extensive record working internationally in Taipei, Japan, Lebanon, Germany, TRACKS

and the US. Institutional & Home Use 1. Damn You Salah, 2. Nadim Hilmi Is In Danger, 3. A Funny Day In Moore, 4. Randa’s On The Phone, Raed Yassin was born in Beirut 1979, he graduated from the Theater Department 5. I Won’t Go To Al-Kawkab Al of the Institute of Fine Arts in Beirut in 2003. He works in video, performance, music Yawmi Today and audio/ visual arts. His performances include Black Pepper , Variations On A Face, and his videos include Beirut, Antenna Sonata featuring Hind Rostom.

MASLAKH 05 CLOISTER by TOM CHANT AND SHARIF SEHNAOUI Lebanon 2006 Tom Chant is a London based recorded artist. He has worked with 4 groups, toured internationally and has played at major festivals and on television and radio shows. Tom has been a director of the London Musicians Collective, a piano and saxo- phone teacher, and writes music.

Sharif Sehnaoui is a free improvising guitarist from Beirut. He plays both electric & acoustic guitars with extended and prepared techniques focusing on expanding the TRACKS intrinsic possibilities of these instruments without the use of effects or electronics. 1. Us Three, 2. Four Sputnik, 3. What About Seven? Along with Christine Sehnaoui & Mazen Kerbaj he created the “Irtijal” festival in 2001 that is at the moment the only improvised and new music festival in the Arab world. He also runs the Al Maslakh label, created by Kerbaj, and devoted to “publish the unpublishable” on the Lebanese musical scene.

MASLAKH 06 CEDARHEAD by MICHAEL ZERANG DUOS WITH SHARIF SEHNAOUI - MAZEN KERBAJ - RAED YASSIN - CHRISTINE SEHNAOUI - CHARBEL HABER - JASSEM HINDI - BECHIR SAADE Lebanon 2007 Michael Zerang has been a professional musician, composer, and producer since 1976, focusing on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet and experimental theater, and international musical forms.

Mazen Kerbaj has played solo and in various groups nationally, regionally and TRACKS 1. Sharif Sehnaoui acoustic guitar, internationally. He is co-founder the MILL association, which has sponsored the an- 2. Mazen Kerbaj trumpet, 3. Raed nual IRTIJAL international festival for free music in Beirut. He has some 4 recorded Yassin tapes and electronics, 4. albums, including on the new Lebanese label Al Maslakh (The Slaughterhouse). Christine Sehnaoui alto sax, 5. Charbel Haber electric guitar, 6. Bechir Saade is a wind instrument musician. He has studied the traditional Arabic Jassem Hindi electronics, 7. Bechir repertoire as well as jazz styles. Today, he is mostly involved in free improvisation, Saadé nay since his founding of the first Lebanese experimental music ensemble - Moukhtaber Ensemble. Bechir Saade is also interested in the musical heritage found in traditional Middle Eastern techniques of improvisation. www.zenithshoponline.com

MASLAKH 07 MAWJA STUDIO ONE by BULLOCK - KERBAJ - MUSIC RAWLINGS Lebanon 2007 Michael T Bullock’s modes of work include electroacoustic composition, improvisation, drawing, and video. For over a decade, Bullock’s groundbreaking work on solo contrabass has created ruptures in the normal relations between performer, instrument, site, and audience. In his electroacoustic work, he combines controlled feedback with field recordings and live video to create multimedia environments. Mazen Kerbaj has played solo and in various groups nationally, regionally and in- TRACKS

ternationally. He is co-founder the MILL association, which has sponsored the an- Institutional & Home Use 1. S 1.1 2. S 1.2 nual IRTIJAL international festival for free music in Beirut. He has some 4 recorded 3. S 1.3 albums, including on the new Lebanese label Al Maslakh (The Slaughterhouse). 4. S 1.4 5. S 1.5 Vic Rawlings employs a still and unstable sound language that traverses visceral ex- 6. S 1.6 cess to extreme austerity. He has designed and built 2 separate instruments to realize this aesthetic. His performances deny conventional assumptions about the use of time and refuse alliance with dominant trends in improvised music. Rawlings has collaborated extensively, toured internationally, and appeared in many international festivals.

MASLAKH 10 A CHURCH IS ONLY SACRED TO BELIEVERS by CHRISTIAN - MILTON - PREVOST - SAADE Lebanon 2009 Bechir Saade is a wind instrument musician. He has studied the traditional Arabic repertoire as well as jazz styles. Today, he is mostly involved in free improvisation, since his founding of the first Lebanese experimental music ensemble - Moukhtaber Ensemble. Bechir Saade is also interested in the musical heritage found in traditional Middle Eastern techniques of improvisation.

TRACKS Edwin Prévost began as a jazz drummer before branching out into entirely impro- 1. song one, 2. song two, 3. song vised music. He was co-founder of the group AMM. In 1965 AMM made a radical three, 4. song four, 5. song five break with jazz, a music that had inspired them but couldn’t accommodate their rap- idly expanding aesthetic concerns. Their dedicated inquiry into the terms of sponta- neous creativity led them to reinvent music as a dialogue with the world beyond the limits of conventional musical discourse.

Matt Milton is a free improvisation violin player based in London, UK. He sometimes uses voice, a saw, or other everyday objects.

NUIT GRAVEMENT A LA SANTE by RAYESS BEK Lebanon 2005 Rayess Bek is one of the founders of Rap and Hip Hop in Arabic. He adapted Rap music to his background and created his own sound and style. His lyrics - always polished, sharp and committed - speak about Lebanon, its crisis, its war, its youth and disillusionment with politics by the new generation.

Rayess Bek was featured in a 2007 PBS documentary “Dissonance and Harmony” for the series “America at a Crossroad”. The film captures the process of Wael’s collaboration with Nile Rogers, Rza from the Wu-Tang Clan and Shavo from System of the Down as well as Rayess’ live performance at the Roxy. www.zenithshoponline.com

RUHANI OYUN HAVALARI (psychebelly dance music) by BABAZULA MUSIC and MAD PROFESSOR) Turkey 2003

Artist Baba Zula is a Turkish musical group, founded in Istanbul in 1996, featuring founding members Levent Akman and Murat Ertel as well as Cosar Kamçı who replaced original member Emre Onel in 2005. BaBa Zula were joined by live drawing artist Ceren Oykut in 2004. Her presence on stage has added an important visual aspect to BaBa Zula’s live performances. Akman, Ertel, and Onel originally formed TRACKS Baba Zula as a side project of now disbanded Anatolian rock group Zen.

1. O divanın ustundeki baygın Institutional & Home Use bakısın, 2. Kısaltmalar, 3. Tilki Dansı, 4. Fayiman cuneyt, 5. Cecom, 6. Su dagları sardı feryadım, 7. Tek kurek yalova, 8.Nobetci felsefeci, 9. Ser ver sır ver ( remix), 10. Seksek, 11. Biz size asik olduk (dub mix), 12. Seks sinemasının esrarı, 13. Urfa be- siri hoyrati, 14. Kısaltmalar (dub mix), 15. Zerrin oz’un odasina girdim.

SOLDIER OF MIDIAN by RAZ MESINAI (BADAWI) US 2001 Mesinai’s music is a unique hybrid of dance music and avant garde composition. He draws his influences from fiction, mythology, anarchist philosophy, as well as elements of alchemy and mysticism.

Composer, Musician, DJ and producer Raz Mesinai was born in Jerusalem in 1973 and was raised primarily in New York City. At the age of ten Mesinai began producing instrumental “breaks” for breakers and rappers in the early eighties. Due to TRACKS 1. Introduction (In The Eye frequent visits between New York City and the Middle East Mesinai developed a Of The Storm), 2. Evocation, 3. Voic- knowledge of both Sufi, Jewish, Algerian, Morroccan and Persian musical traditions. es From The Sky, 4. Dance Of The This combined with his self taught compositional style and his skills as an engineer Centipedes, 5. The Scorpion &The and dub alchemist, developed Mesinai’s incomparable sound. Serpent, 6. Moving Still, 7. After The Path Has Been Paved, 8. I Will ‘It is apparent just how integral Badawi is to New York’s illbient scene— swing- Follow The Storm, 9. Stampede,10. ing the dub pendulum from dark and disturbing to tongue-in-cheek zaniness. He Dehydration, 11. Dance Of The Djaz teases and mystifies us in the same spirit of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.’Urb Mara,12. Final Warning,13. Horse Dance,14. The Storm. ‘A high-powered blend of Middle Eastern and Jamaican music (dub). NY Post

TARAB by RABIH ABOU KHALIL Lebanon 1999 Rabih Abou-Khalil blends traditional Arabic music with jazz, rock and classical music. Together with Anouar Brahem he has helped highlight the oud as a vehicle of eclectic “world jazz”.

TRACKS 1. Bushman In The Desert, 2. After Dinner, 3. Awakening, 4. Haneen Wa Hanaan, 5. Lost Centuries, 6. In Search Of The Well, 7. Orange Fields, 8. A Tooth Lost, 9. Arabian Waltz