Films
Index / Activities / Films / Spring cinema in Cordoba
Spring cinema in Cordoba
From April 24, 2015 until June 12, 20158:00 p.m.
CóRDOBA
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9).
8:00 p.m.
Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.
Original language version with Spanish subtitles.
From April to June, our headquarters in Andalusia is hosting four new film screenings.
On this occasion, Casa Árabe is presenting an eclectic series of films that includes both feature-length fiction films and documentaries.
The selected films deal with a wide range of subject matters directly related with the current environment in which we are living, filled with uncertainty while raising so many open-ended questions. With El Rayo, we will be giving a voice in the first person to a main character in Arab emigration to Europe, through the original story of Hassan, a Moroccan who has lived in Spain for over a decade. We will share the experience of two people who come from very different cultural, social and religious backgrounds, but whose paths cross as a result of a terrorist attack, in London River. By following a series of characters from Palestine, we will become familiar, in Bromas aparte ((No) Laughing Matter), the culture of humor and satire as something deeply rooted in many Arab countries, and through Ziara, más allá del umbral (Ziara, Beyond the Threshold), the result of an in-depth study expressed through documentary film, we will delve into other ways of living the Muslim religion, in this case the popular Islam of marabout worship and the festive pilgrimages that take place in northern Morocco.
The selected films deal with a wide range of subject matters directly related with the current environment in which we are living, filled with uncertainty while raising so many open-ended questions. With El Rayo, we will be giving a voice in the first person to a main character in Arab emigration to Europe, through the original story of Hassan, a Moroccan who has lived in Spain for over a decade. We will share the experience of two people who come from very different cultural, social and religious backgrounds, but whose paths cross as a result of a terrorist attack, in London River. By following a series of characters from Palestine, we will become familiar, in Bromas aparte ((No) Laughing Matter), the culture of humor and satire as something deeply rooted in many Arab countries, and through Ziara, más allá del umbral (Ziara, Beyond the Threshold), the result of an in-depth study expressed through documentary film, we will delve into other ways of living the Muslim religion, in this case the popular Islam of marabout worship and the festive pilgrimages that take place in northern Morocco.
-
London River
April 24, 20158:00 p.m.CóRDOBACasa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.The films are shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.Screening of this film by Rachid Bouchareb (United Kingdom, France and Algeria, 2009, 87 mins.).Ousmane is a Muslim who lives in France. Mrs. Sommers (Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn) is a war widow who lives on an island in the English Channel. Though they do not know each other and both have different religious backgrounds, these strangers become united in the city of London due to a shared tragedy: each of them has lost contact with their child since the day of the terrorist attacks. Together they comb the city in search of their loved ones, united by the hope that they might still be alive.
Cast: Brenda Blethyn, Sotigui Kouyate
-
Bromas aparte ((No) Laughing matter)
May 08, 20158:00 p.m.CóRDOBACasa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.The films are shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.Screening of the film by Vanessa Rousselot (France, Palestine, 2010, 54 mins.)Convinced that humor has no borders, a young documentary director sets off on an unusual journey: to search for humor in Palestine. In the beginning, she only finds disillusionment, such as people saying that “our whole situation is a huge joke.” However, little by little, she discovers a surprising, deeply rooted culture of humor. From the stories making fun of people from Hebron (the “Polish jokes” of Palestine) to political jokes and bitter anecdotes about the absurdity of everyday life under occupation, her journey takes her into an unknown world in which a ray of light and hope is enduring the overshadowing conflict.
-
El Rayo
May 22, 20158:00 p.m.CóRDOBACasa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.The films are shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.Casa Árabe is screening this film by Fran Araújo and Ernesto de Nova (Spain, 2013, 86 mins.).After 13 years in Spain, Hassan can no longer find work, so he decides to set off on the journey to return home. He invests all of his savings in a second-hand tractor to earn a living once he returns to his country and decides to drive it all the way back to Morocco. When he got to Spain, he had nothing, but now he is returning home with his only possession: El Rayo.
Starring: Hassan Benoudra
Film preview and audio -
Ziara, más allá del umbral (Ziara, Beyond the Threshold)
June 12, 20158:00 p.m.CóRDOBACasa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9). 8:00 p.m. Free entrance until the event’s capacity is reached.The films are shown in the original language version with subtitles in Spanish.Casa Árabe is screening this film by Sonia Gámez (Spain, 2013, 55 mins.)The documentary film Ziara travels through northern Morocco to delve inside the “marabouts,” one of the main spaces for popular religious worship and natural medicine. The legends about the saints who lay at rest inside the marabouts are still told today, withstanding the passage of time. The term Ziara expresses the idea of ritual and sharing. It refers to the pilgrimage to the site, the visit which is made by pilgrims to these saint’s tombs guided by their faith, to make a sacrifice in exchange for the saint’s protection and receiving luck, or baraka.
Ziara is the end result of a project titled “Marabout Worship and Popular Religious Traditions Among the Guelaya,” financed by the Institute of Cultures and Institute of Mediterranean Culture.