Sunday, October 1 at 12:15pm | The Main Cinema
Post-screening Q&A with visiting filmmakers Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller, Lily Ekimian, Laith Nakli, Maryam Mir, and Ahmed Ragheb.
About Love and Diaspora (Shorts Segment): In an ideal world, love defines our relationships with friends and family members. But love often comes to us in unexpected moments and forms, as we experience kindness from a stranger, encouragement from a rival sibling, or attention from a new romantic interest. In this short segment, love takes many forms and it underpins stories of diaspora, longing, and relocation, demonstrating the strength of relationships between family and friends, old and new, to provide solace and support.
About Simo
Dir. Aziz Zoromba | 2022 | Canada, Egypt | French and Arabic with English subtitles | 23 min
Simo and Emad’s brotherhood is filled with competition and jealousy. In a desire to prove his popularity and capabilities to his older brother, Simo sneakily takes over Emad’s online gaming channel. His actions take a dangerous turn that may seriously impact the future of their family.
Director’s Bio
Aziz Zoromba is an Egyptian-Canadian writer, director, and producer. Growing up between two distinct countries and cultures, Aziz’s films primarily focus on the themes of ethno-cultural identity, assimilation, and multigenerational trauma through diverse cinematic genres. He is a graduate of Montreal's Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema and an alumni of the 2019 Sundance Ignite fellowship. Faraway (2020), his debut documentary short, has screened at more than thirty film festivals around the world and has been selected as Vimeo’s Staff Picks Best of the Year (2022). His latest live action short, Simo (2022), won the Best Canadian Film Award at TIFF and had its international premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in addition to its European premiere at the 73rd Berlinale. Simo was the recipient of the prestigious Denis Villeneuve's Favourite Short Film Award at the 19th "Prends Ça Court Gala" and the winner of the 2023 Canadian Screen Award for the Best Live Action Short. Aziz also co-produced the highly acclaimed short documentary No Crying at the Dinner Table (Carol Nguyen, 2019).
About I Come From the Sea
Dir. Feyrouz Serhal | 2023 | Lebanon | Arabic with English subtitles | 22 min
Samar, Jude, and Imad skip school and venture into their city, Tripoli, and the sea. The encounter between the city and the three kids creates magic at every corner.
Director’s Bio
Feyrouz Serhal acquired her MA in film and screen studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London (2009). Her short narrative film Tshweesh won the film prize of Robert Bosch Stiftung during Berlinale 2016 after premiering in Locarno Film Festival in 2017. Tshweesh has screened in more than sixty festivals around the world. In 2022, Serhal wrote and directed the short films I Come from the Sea and Sen Ti. She is now developing I Am Here but You Can’t See Me, her first feature narrative film as director.
About Tales of the Marvelous and News of the Strange
Dir. Lily Ekimian, Ahmed T. Ragheb | 2023 | Egypt, USA | English | 8 min
Set against the dreary Pittsburgh winter, this story follows a couple––Ahmed, an Arab-American actor, and Lily, a photography student––grappling with their cultural and spiritual identities through superstition and art. Their intertwined stories are told through 35mm photography, a sprawling narration, and contradictory subtitles. The ensuing psychogeographic journey explores the urban landscapes of Western Pennsylvania and Egypt, the human psyche, the past, the present, and the anatomy of film itself.
Directors' Bio
Lily Ekimian and Ahmed T. Ragheb are independent filmmakers based in Pittsburgh. Lily––part American, part Russian––grew up between Washington, DC and Cairo, Egypt. Ahmed––Egyptian, Dutch, and American––was born and raised in Cairo. Lily received her MA in English literature and film & visual culture from the University of Aberdeen, and Ahmed received his BA in political science and government from the George Washington University. Their work deals with the concepts of identity and place, with an emphasis on language, feminism, cultural dislocation, and domestic relationships. Their short films have been screened at festivals around the world including Arab Film & Media Institute’s Arab Film Festival and Uppsala Short Film Festival (where they were nominated for the Ingmar Bergman Award). In addition to their short film work they directed a feature documentary, Portrait (2020), and music videos. Alongside their production company Studio Ragheb, together they co-founded and run The Pittsburgher, an online arts and culture magazine.
About Sweet Refuge
Dir. Maryam Mir | 2023 | USA | English and Arabic with English subtitles | 12 min
Struggling to find a place in the United States, a passionate baklava baker tries to learn the ropes of his new surroundings by selling desserts. When he encounters a savvy ladoo maker on the streets of Brooklyn, he picks up the tricks of the trade.
Director’s Bio
Maryam Mir is a writer/director currently pursuing her MFA in film production at NYU Tisch, where she is an Ang Lee Scholar. As a Kashmiri-Canadian with Kenyan ancestry born in Germany and raised in Bahrain, Maryam has always found inspiration in stories that center the immigrant experience in all its joy, delight, and magic. She is a HEAR US awardee (2021), a UCP Thousand Miles Project workshop participant (2022), a Tasveer Film Fund recipient (2022), a NYFA Canadian Women Artists’ awardee (2022), and a Gotham Marcie Bloom Fellow (2023). Her latest short film, Sweet Refuge, starring Laith Nakli and Mahira Kakkar, was awarded a Jury Award at the Director's Guild of America Student Film Awards and a distribution grant from the Islamic Scholarship Fund. Her previous short film, Birdwatching, was an official selection at the International Film Festival of South Asia) and the Asian American International Film Festival.
Laith Nakli's Bio
Laith Nakli is a Syrian actor/writer. He graduated from the prestigious William Esper Studio Professional Actor Training Program. Laith made his stage debut in War at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Company. Other credits include Cry of the Reed, Inana, Aftermath, Lidless, Food & Fadwa and Cyrano, at New York Theatre Workshop, Goodspeed and others. He is one of the regular characters in the Hulu series Ramy.
About Eitr
Dir. Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller | 2023 | Canada | English and Arabic with English subtitles | 15 min
Grinding away at the inherited family business, Mohamed works tirelessly selling knock-off perfume, while living as a knock-off version of himself. His doting mother Marwa brings him lunch every day and sets up chay dates with potential romantic interests (and their families) seemingly every night. Inside of this monotony, Mohamed is lying to himself about his sexuality and leaning into the mask of masculinity in order to maintain the expectations of those around him, but in reality the biggest expectations of how he should be are set by himself. We follow Mohamed on a day when the monotony comes to a screeching halt—an unexpected, charming customer enters his shop. Mohamed shares a connection with this beautiful stranger who lives in self-acceptance and who truly sees him underneath the many layers of Polo Sport–adjacent cologne. In Eitr, Mohamed’s fear of his true desires will be tested as he is caught off-guard by the power of being seen, but can this connection break him out of his performative shell, even for a lingering moment?
Director’s Bio
Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller is a Queer mixed-race Palestinian-Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto. Her work explores themes of fragmented identity, isolation, and connection through grounded "oh no, should I laugh?" comedy. Fateema’s background in improvisation and clown greatly influences all of her work as she strives to create with integrity, depth, and a sense of humor. She is particularly passionate about bringing to life nuanced and humanizing representations of Arabs and Muslims for the screen and prioritizes building spaces for marginalized voices to thrive both in front of and behind the camera. Fateema's short film Eitr was one of eight world-wide recipients of InsideOut's RE:Focus Fund, she is a Women in the Director's Chair alumnus and is currently in development for her first feature film, the coming-of-age dramedy, Waves ('Amwaj).
About P.D.O. (Protected Designation of Origin)
Dir. Samy Sidali | 2023 | Morocco, France | French with English subtitles | 18 min
Advised by an administration full of good intentions, Latefa and her two children, Walid and Ptissam, Frenchize their first names at the same time as they acquire French nationality. They face this unique ordeal with humor and lightness, just before the start of the school year.
Director’s Bio
Samy Sidali was born in 1989 in Hauts-de-Seine to Moroccan parents. At eighteen, he moved to London where he studied cinema at the University of the Arts London, graduating in 2013. He worked for two years for the as a director of corporate films and documentaries. Since 2017, he has developed several short films and documentary projects in hybrid formats. In March 2020, he shot his first short film, Jmar. The film is currently being broadcast. In June 2021, he shot his second short fiction film A.O.C. He is currently working on the post-production of a short documentary filmed in Casablanca, Petit Taxi.
Presented by Mizna
Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than twenty years, we have been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.