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Arab Window at the African Film Festival (FCAT) 

From November 02, 2018 until January 25, 2019Check schedules and conditions for entry in each city.
MADRID AND CORDOBA
Casa Árabe Auditoriums. Check schedules and conditions for entry in each city.
Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.

For yet another year, Casa Árabe is cooperating with the film festival through this film series, which includes the screening of two fictional feature films and two documentaries that could be seen at the last edition of FCAT.

Casa Árabe is following through on its commitment to cooperate with the African Film Festival of Tarifa-Tangier (FCAT) for yet another year, by contributing to the dissemination and support of recently created Arab film. The series which we are now presenting, a result of the cooperation which Casa Árabe has provided to the Festival for more than a decade, includes four notable productions that were shown at the last edition of FCAT, held from April 27 through May 5, 2018 in Tarifa and Tangier simultaneously. The films which make up the series include two award-winning fictional feature films and two documentaries.

Poisonous Roses, the film which won the fifteenth edition of FCAT, takes an amazing look inside the world of the working classes in Cairo’s tanneries. The festival’s jury highlighted the film’s “innovation, originality and nearly documentary-style vantage point, which attempts to remain true to reality.” We have before us a brilliant portrait of an oppressed woman living in a hostile environment, directed by young filmmaker and human rights activist Ahmed Fawzi Saleh (Alexandria, Egypt, 1981).

Beauty and the Dogs, by young Tunisian director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania, earned such awards as the FCAT Audience Prize for 2018. A film based on an actual event that took place in Tunisia in 2012, it tells the dramatic real-time story, in nine sequential shots, of a young woman who attempts to file a police report after being raped.  This fictional work provides an excellent opportunity for reflection upon one of the hottest topics being discussed in many countries today: the visibility of sexual abuse victims.

The two documentaries which round off the series are grounded more in politics and focus on the activists movements inspired by the “Arab Springs.” In both works, answers are sought about whether or not there is any hope for a democratic transition. Vote Off by Fayçal Hammoun deals with the presidential elections in Algeria in 2014, in a place where youths who have never exercised their right to vote do not seem to show much interest in the matter. In Synesthesia, Cairo 13, which simultaneously premiered in Spain and Morocco at the last edition of FCAT, director Maged El-Mahedy tells us about how he was forced to give up the project that takes him back to Cairo, the making of a documentary about the Sphinx, surrendering to the current events taking place in the Egyptian uprisings.
Arab Window at the African Film Festival (FCAT) 
  • Beauty and the Dogs [Alaa Kaf Ifrit]  

    November 02, 20187:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. Sales in advance on this website or on the day of the show at Casa Árabe’s headquarters as of one hour before each session. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Kaouther Ben Hania directed the first film to be shown in the series which Casa Árabe has organized with the African Film Festival (FCAT) in the months of November and December.
    Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania (France, Lebanon, Norway, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland and Tunisia, 2017, 100 min.) Fiction.

    Plot summary: During a party for students, Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, meets Youssef and goes off with him. A few hours later, Mariam is roaming the streets in shock. It is the beginning of a long night in which she will have to fight to earn respect for her rights and dignity. But how can she find justice when it works to help the criminals?
  • Vote Off 

    November 16, 20187:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. On sale in advance on this website, or on the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters, as of one hour before each film screening. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    This week, we are showing this documentary directed by Fayçal Hammoun as part of the film series we have organized in collaboration with FCAT throughout the months of November and December.
    Directed by Fayçal Hammoun (Algeria, 2017, 82 min.) Documentary.

    Algiers, March 2014. The presidential election campaign has begun. Vote Off is a portrait of young people under the age of thirty who have never voted before. The film lets them speak, accompanying them in their everyday lives and revealing the trip each of the main characters takes to work, where they must face both the hierarchy and boredom. At present, however, the youth who will be building tomorrow’s world don’t seem very concerned about a democratic act of a great magnitude: voting.
  • Vote Off

    November 23, 20188:00 p.m.
    CÓRDOBA
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    The film series which Casa Árabe has organized in collaboration with FCAT begins in Cordoba, with the screening of this documentary directed by Fayçal Hammoun.
    Directed by Fayçal Hammoun (Algeria, 2017, 82 min.) Documentary.

    Algiers, March 2014. The presidential election campaign has begun. Vote Off is a portrait of young people under the age of thirty who have never voted before. The film lets them speak, accompanying them in their everyday lives and revealing the trip each of the main characters takes to work, where they must face both the hierarchy and boredom. At present, however, the youth who will be building tomorrow’s world don’t seem very concerned about a democratic act of a great magnitude: voting.
  • Poisonous Roses [Ward Masmoum] 

    November 23, 20187:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. Sales in advance on this website or on the day of the show at Casa Árabe’s headquarters as of one hour before each session. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Ahmed Fawzi Saleh directed this fictional film set in the neighborhood of the tanneries. Buy your ticket online now.
    Directed by Ahmed Fawzi Saleh (Egypt, United Arab Emirates, France and Qatar, 2018, 70 min.) Fiction.

    Saqr longs to flee from the filthy Egyptian neighborhood of tanneries where he lives and works, but his sister Taheya wants to stop him, no matter how. Every day, she prepares his lunch and takes it to him to show him that he would die of hunger without her. Beneath her hijab, she roams the narrows alleys crisscrossed by sewers,  barely touched by sunlight. Amid hanging leather hides and heavily burdened mules, a shaman observes her in silence and helps her keep her brother from running away.
  • Synesthesia, Cairo’13 

    November 30, 20187:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. Sales in advance on this website or on the day of the show at Casa Árabe’s headquarters as of one hour before each session. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Documentary directed by Maged El-Mahedy (Egypt and Italy, 2017, 70 min.), filmed in Egypt during the times of the Muslim Brotherhood government.
    June 2013. Maged returns to Cairo after Mubarak’s downfall to film a documentary about the Sphinx. He is faced with another revolt, this time against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood’s government. Maged goes into a state of synesthesia in which he rediscovers his own childhood.
  • Poisonous Roses [Ward Masmoum] 

    November 30, 20188:00 p.m.
    CÓRDOBA
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    On Friday, November 30, we will be showing this fictional film directed by Ahmed Fawzi Saleh at our headquarters in Cordoba. Its plot is set in the neighborhood of the Egyptian tanneries.
    Directed by Ahmed Fawzi Saleh (Egypt, United Arab Emirates, France and Qatar, 2018, 70 min.) Fiction.

    Saqr longs to flee from the filthy Egyptian neighborhood of tanneries where he lives and works, but his sister Taheya wants to stop him, no matter how. Every day, she prepares his lunch and takes it to him to show him that he would die of hunger without her. Beneath her hijab, she roams the narrows alleys crisscrossed by sewers,  barely touched by sunlight. Amid hanging leather hides and heavily burdened mules, a shaman observes her in silence and helps her keep her brother from running away.
  • Beauty and the Dogs [Alaa Kaf Ifrit] 

    December 07, 20187:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. On sale in advance on this website, or on the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters, as of one hour before each film screening. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Last chance to see this fictional feature film directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania in Madrid. Buy your ticket online now. 
    Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania (France, Lebanon, Norway, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland and Tunisia, 2017, 100 min.) Fiction

    Plot summary: During a party for students, Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, meets Youssef and goes off with him. A few hours later, Mariam is roaming the streets in shock. It is the beginning of a long night in which she will have to fight to earn respect for her rights and dignity. But how can she find justice when it works to help the criminals?
  • Synesthesia, Cairo’13

    December 21, 20188:00 p.m.
    CÓRDOBA
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Another screening in Cordoba of the film series that Casa Árabe has organized at its headquarters in Madrid and Cordoba throughout the months of November and December, in collaboration with the African Film Festival (FCAT).  
    Directed by Maged El-Mahedy (Egypt and Italy, 2017, 70 min.) Documentary.

    June 2013. Maged returns to Cairo after Mubarak’s downfall to film a documentary about the Sphinx. He is faced with another revolt, this time against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood’s government. Maged goes into a state of synesthesia in which he rediscovers his own childhood.
  • Vote Off 

    December 21, 20187:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. On sale in advance on this website, or on the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters, as of one hour before each film screening. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Fayçal Hammoun directed this documentary, which deals with the elections that were held in Algeria in March of 2014. Tickets now on sale.
    Directed by Fayçal Hammoun (Algeria, 2017, 82 min.) Documentary.

    Algiers, March 2014. The presidential election campaign has begun. Vote Off is a portrait of young people under the age of thirty who have never voted before. The film lets them speak, accompanying them in their everyday lives and revealing the trip each of the main characters takes to work, where they must face both the hierarchy and boredom. At present, however, the youth who will be building tomorrow’s world don’t seem very concerned about a democratic act of a great magnitude: voting.
  • Beauty and the Dogs [Alaa Kaf Ifrit] 

    January 11, 20198:00 p.m.
    CÓRDOBA
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    The film series which Casa Árabe has organized in collaboration with FCAT continues in Cordoba, with the screening of this fictional film by Kaouther Ben Hania.
    Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania (France, Lebanon, Norway, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland and Tunisia, 2017, 100 min.) Fiction.

    During a party for students, Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, meets Youssef and goes off with him. A few hours later, Mariam is roaming the streets in shock. It is the beginning of a long night in which she will have to fight to earn respect for her rights and dignity. But how can she find justice when it works to help the criminals?
  • Poisonous Roses [Ward Masmoum] 

    January 18, 20197:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. On sale in advance on this website, or on the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters, as of one hour before each film screening. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Last chance in Madrid to see this fictional film, whose main character is Taheya, a girl who wants to keep her brother from running off from the neighborhood where they live and work. The film was directed by Ahmed Fawzi Saleh.
    Directed by Ahmed Fawzi Saleh (Egypt, United Arab Emirates, France and Qatar, 2018, 70 min.) Fiction.

    Saqr longs to flee from the filthy Egyptian neighborhood of tanneries where he lives and works, but his sister Taheya wants to stop him, no matter how. Every day, she prepares his lunch and takes it to him to show him that he would die of hunger without her. Beneath her hijab, she roams the narrows alleys crisscrossed by sewers,  barely touched by sunlight. Amid hanging leather hides and heavily burdened mules, a shaman observes her in silence and helps her keep her brother from running away.
  • Synesthesia, Cairo’13 

    January 25, 20197:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 5 euros: general tickets at the box office.
    4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. Sales in advance on this website or on the day of the show at Casa Árabe’s headquarters as of one hour before each session. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    This documentary brings the film series which we have organized during the months of November and December, in collaboration with the African Film Festival (FCAT) to an end.
    Directed by Maged El-Mahedy (Egypt and Italy, 2017, 70 min.) Documentary

    June 2013. Maged returns to Cairo after Mubarak’s downfall to film a documentary about the Sphinx. He is faced with another revolt, this time against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood’s government. Maged goes into a state of synesthesia in which he rediscovers his own childhood.