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Arab Window at the African Film Festival (FCAT) - 2019 

From May 17, 2019 until June 21, 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 up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m. Those tickets not sold online will be put on sale the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters as of one hour before each film (cash payment only). Assigned seats with tickets.
Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.

From May 17 through June 21, 2019, Casa Árabe is screening a selection of the films presented at the last edition of this film festival, at its headquarters in Madrid.

For yet another year, Casa Árabe has renewed its commitment to cooperate with the African Film Festival of Tarifa-Tangiers (FCAT), thereby contributing to increased awareness of and support for the world of Arab filmmaking and its current productions. The films forming part of this series were presented at the last edition of the Festival, held recently on both continents from April 25 through May 4, 2019. The four productions which we are showing deal with the modern-day reality in Tunisia, Libya, Morocco and Somalia. They include one fictional feature film and three documentaries, bearing witness to the great importance held by documentary productions in the Arab world.

Weldi (My Son) is the second feature film by Mohamed Ben Attia, the acclaimed director of Hedi, a film which won many awards ,including three at the Berlinale in 2016. It was screened a short time ago at Casa Árabe. In this new work, the director continues to reflect upon the generational conflicts between parents and children. However, it also discusses topics involving religion and politics in today’s Tunisia, where tradition and modernity live side by side. The film was presented at the latest Cannes Film Festival as part of the fiftieth edition of the Filmmakers’ Fortnight and the Pingyao, China Film Festival.

Naziha Arebi (Great Britain, 1984), director and screenwriter of the documentary Freedom Fields, is a Libyan-British artist and filmmaker who returned to Libya shortly before Gaddafi was overthrown to work in and explore her father’s native land. Arebi’s work lies at the crossroads between art and activism. Freedom Fields deals with the hope and efforts of three young women who share the same seemingly simple goal: playing soccer. Throughout the five years in which it took to complete filming of the documentary, Naziha Arebi became a unique witness to the changes in a country undergoing transition.

Mohamed El Khatib, a theater director and playwright of Moroccan origin who resides in France, made his debut in the world of documentary film in 2016 after earning the Grand Prize for Dramatic Literature in France, for his work Finir en Beauté, a play based on a personal experience: the death of his mother. Also arising from this life event came his film Renault 12 , in which he documents a trip to Morocco requested by his family in order to take care of his mother’s inheritance. It is a documentary structured like a road movie, in which El Khatib provides a recount of his journey from Orléans, France to Tangiers aboard a Renault 12, a car which became extremely popular in 1970’s Morocco. At the same time, it tells the tale of an inner journey of discovery about his own origins.

Lost Warrior is a striking documentary by directors Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen, who already dealt with the problem of Arab youth radicalization in Europe in his film Warriors from the North. Like Mohammed, the main character in Lost Warrior, Nasib Farah reached Norway as a refugee at the age of just 12, without his parents. Perhaps it is because of this that he understands so well what makes these youths trapped between two cultures so vulnerable, bearing a heavy burden caused by the trauma of wars. They are youths exposed to the dangers of radicalization, who have been both deceived and forgotten. They are lost warriors.

Film series information sheet
Arab Window at the African Film Festival (FCAT) - 2019 
  • Weldi, by Mohamed Ben Attia

    May 17, 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 up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m. Those tickets not sold online will be put on sale the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters as of one hour before each film (cash payment only). Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Our film screenings are returning to Casa Árabe’s headquarters in Madrid once again with this movie, the first in a series we have organized with the cooperation of the Tarifa-Tangiers African Film Festival (FCAT).
    Weldi, by Mohamed Ben Attia (Belgium, France, Tunisia. 2018. 104 min.) Fiction

    Riadh is on the verge of returning from his job as a forklift operator at the port of Tunis. He and his wife Nazli devote their entire lives to Sami, their only son, who is about to finish high school. The usual headaches caused by a teenager begin to concern the parents. And just when everything seems to be improving, he suddenly vanishes...
  • <i>Freedom Fields </i>

    Freedom Fields

    May 24, 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. Advance sales at www.casaarabe.es up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m. Those tickets not sold online will be put on sale the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters as of one hour before each film (cash payment only). Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    The filmmaker of Libyan origin, Naziha Arebi, directed this documentary, which we will be screening in Madrid on May 24 as part of the film series that we have organized with the cooperation of FCAT.
    Freedom Fields by Naziha Arebi (Libya, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, United States, Lebanon, Qatar, Canada. 2018, 97 min.) Documentary

    In post-revolution Libya, a group of women has come together to achieve the dream they all share: playing soccer for their country. However, that country is mired in civil war, and the utopian hopes of the Arab Spring are drifting away. Will they be able to make their dream come true? And even more importantly, do they have any country left to play for? Freedom Fields is a film that revolves around hope and sacrifice in a land where dreams are still quite a luxury. From the vantage point of these accidental activists, we discover a country in transition, where love stories, struggles and aspirations can be at odds with history.

    Listen to an interview with the director here.
  • Lost Warrior 

    June 07, 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. Advance sales at www.casaarabe.es up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m. Those tickets not sold online will be put on sale the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters as of one hour before each film (cash payment only). Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    On Friday, June 7, we will be holding the third screening in the film series that we have organized with the cooperation of FCAT, a documentary directed by Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen.
    Lost Warrior, by Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen
    (Somalia, Denmark, Kenya, United Kingdom. 2018, 81 min.) Documentary

    Mohammed was three years old when his parents sent him to England to live a better life. While a teenager, he got caught up in trouble and was sentenced to do time in jail, where he became radicalized. At the age of 19, he was extradited and joined Al-Shabab without a second thought. However, when he realizes that it is not the liberal movement the he had imagined, and that he is responsible for terrorist attacks, he flees from the organization. By the age of 23, he has gone into hiding in Mogadishu, while his son and the boy’s mother live in London. The film describes the young family’s struggle to get back together again.
  • Weldi 

    June 14, 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. Advance sales at www.casaarabe.es up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m. Those tickets not sold online will be put on sale the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters as of one hour before each film (cash payment only). Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    The second and last chance to see this film by Mohamed Ben Attia at the Casa Árabe headquarters in Madrid, as part of the film series which we have organized in conjunction with FCAT. Buy your ticket online now.
    Weldi, by Mohamed Ben Attia (Belgium, France, Tunisia. 2018, 104 min.) Fiction

    Riadh is on the verge of retiring from his job as a forklift operator at the port of Tunis. He and his wife Nazli devote their entire lives to Sami, their only son, who is about to finish high school. The usual headaches caused by a teenager begin to concern the parents. And just when everything seems to be improving, he suddenly vanishes...
  • Renault 12

    June 21, 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. Advance sales at www.casaarabe.es up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m. Those tickets not sold online will be put on sale the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters as of one hour before each film (cash payment only). Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    This model by French car maker Renault was one of the most popular car models in Morocco in the 1970s and has now given its name to this documentary by Mohamed El Khatib, which we will be screening in Madrid on June 21.
    Renault 12, by Mohamed El Khatib (France, Morocco, Belgium. 2018, 78 min.) Documentary

    A short time after his mother’s death, the playwright and theater director Mohamed El Khatib receives a call from his uncle at Bab Berred, the family village in the Rif Mountains of Morocco, telling him he should return as soon as possible to deal with her inheritance, insisting that he do so in a Renault 12. El Khatib decides to travel from Orléans to Tangiers. Renault 12 is also an attempt by the director to discover his origins, to document unexpected encounters and to set the stage for situation which cast light on social, political and cultural landscapes.
  • <i>Freedom Fields </i>

    Freedom Fields

    June 28, 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. Advance sales at www.casaarabe.es up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m. Those tickets not sold online will be put on sale the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters as of one hour before each film (cash payment only). Assigned seats with tickets.
    Films shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Last screening in the film series we have organized in the months of May and June with the cooperation of the Tarifa-Tangiers African Film Festival.
    Freedom Fields, by Naziha Arebi (Libya, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, United States, Lebanon, Qatar, Canada. 2018, 97 min.) Documentary

    In post-revolution Libya, a group of women has come together to achieve the dream they all share: playing soccer for their country. However, that country is mired in civil war, and the utopian hopes of the Arab Spring are drifting away. Will they be able to make their dream come true? And even more importantly, do they have any country left to play for? Freedom Fields is a film that revolves around hope and sacrifice in a land where dreams are still quite a luxury. From the vantage point of these accidental activists, we discover a country in transition, where love stories, struggles and aspirations can be at odds with history.

    Watch the interview with the director here.