Morocco
Abdellah is a young gay man navigating the sexual, racial and political climate of Morocco. Growing up in a large family in a working-class neighborhood, Abdellah is caught between a distant father, an authoritarian mother, an older brother whom he adores and a handful of predatory older men, in a society that denies his homosexuality.
Documentary about the Moroccan musical group Nass El Ghiwane.
In Morocco, unmarried women who become pregnant risk a prison sentence. They often don’t even dare to tell their families, for fear of exclusion and rejection. The Oum El Banine association in Agadir is there to support them, under the inspiring leadership of 62-year-old feminist Mahjouba Edbouche. She takes the girls and women under her wing, providing shelter, education, and legal assistance. To try and secure them a safe home, she also seeks ways for the young mothers to mend the relationships with their parents.
A film within a film, “Looking for Oum Kulthum” is the plight of an Iranian woman artist/filmmaker living in exile, as she embarks on capturing the life and art of the legendary female singer of the Arab world, Oum Kulthum. Through her difficult journey, not unlike her heroine’s, she has to face the struggles, sacrifices and the price that a woman has to pay if she dares to cross the lines of a conservative male dominated society.
Isaac’s son Jacob deprives his brother Esau of his birthright and has to flee for his life. He finds shelter with his uncle Laban, but is himself deceived. Finally, Jacob has to face both his uncle and brother.
This intimate documentary profiles a group of surfers who have built their lives around the sport as they connect over their shared passion in Morocco.
When a rapper-turned-teacher brings hip-hop to a community center in an impoverished area of Casablanca, his tough methods spark an explosion of talent.
On his clandestine journey from Cameroon to Europe through the Sahara desert, Léonard meets Hope, a Nigerian girl who’s following the same dream.
Volubilis is a tale of love in a world of despair, of beauty among the ruins. In the Moroccan city of Meknès, recently married Abdelkader and Malika struggle to make ends meet. They dream of leaving the family house and finally starting a life of their own together. But one day at work, Abdelkader gets mixed up in a violent incident that will turn their lives upside down.
Reda, summoned to accompany his father on a pilgrimage to Mecca, complies reluctantly – as he preparing for his baccalaureat and, even more important, has a secret love relationship. The trip across Europe in a broken-down car is also the departure of his father: upon arrival in Mecca, both Reda and his father are not the characters they were at the start of the movie. Avoiding the hackneyed theme of the return to the homeland, the film uses the departure to renew a connection between two generation.
The story of Zineb El Rhazoui, a young Moroccan woman who, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack, finds her life radically transformed : from a censored journalist in Morocco she becomes the most protected woman of France.
A young, orthodox Jewish woman is alienated from her Jerusalem community and drawn into the world of spirit.
In the summer of 1991 an elderly woman Ghislaine Marchal is found murdered in the basement of her home with the message “Omar M’a Tuer” (Omar has kill me) written beside in her own blood. Despite a lack of forensic or DNA evidence, her Moroccan gardener Omar Raddad is found guilty and sentenced to 18 years in a French prison. Shocked by the case, and convinced of his innocence, journalist Pierre-Emmanuel Vaugrenard moves to Nice to investigate, and uncover the truth…
John’s gospel is depicted, complete with Aramaic narration, highlighting Christ’s life including birth, baptism, first miracle, healing the blind man, walking on water, feeding the multitude, raising Lazarus from the dead, the Last Supper, his flogging and crucifixion, and most importantly his resurrection.
A father and son in the suburbs of Casablanca get by on petty crimes for a local mob. When a kidnapping goes wrong, they must find a way to dispose of the body. Trapped in a long night, they have no idea what awaits them.
In hellish Casablanca, a car-crash sets ablaze a burning, passionate love story between has-been rocker Larsen and the streetwise amazon Rajae. An unspoken trauma is their common history; rock n’ roll their mutual saviour. Larsen’s snakeskin-covered guitar and Rajae’s liquid gold voice could be heaven, if only everything from his drug-induced visions to her music-buff pimp didn’t get in the way. The only hope for their blooming romance is to skip this ferocious town. Is there a way out of this crazy Moroccan underworld with its menagerie of sadistic cops, venomous snakes, metal concerts and shotgun-wielding modern-day Calamity Janes? For these punk Romeo and Juliet, maybe the answer lies in a song – the one they’ve been writing and dreaming together : Zanka Contact
‘Der Baader Meinhof Komplex’ depicts the political turmoil in the period from 1967 to the bloody “Deutschen Herbst” in 1977. The movie approaches the events based on Stefan Aust’s standard work on the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF). The story centers on the leadership of the self named anti-fascist resistance to state violence: Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.
Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib’s revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor – when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib’s gang. Matters are getting serious.
The Tibetans refer to the Dalai Lama as ‘Kundun’, which means ‘The Presence’. He was forced to escape from his native home, Tibet, when communist China invaded and enforced an oppressive regime upon the peaceful nation. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959 and has been living in exile in Dharamsala ever since.
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son – and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Edipo (Oedipus), and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Edipo that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents – only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…
Santa Claus tries to outrun a gang of knife-wielding youth. It’s one of several vignettes of Palestinian life in Israel – in a neighborhood in Nazareth and at Al-Ram checkpoint in East Jerusalem. Most of the stories are droll, some absurd, one is mythic and fanciful; few words are spoken. A man who goes through his mail methodically each morning has a heart attack. His son visits him in the hospital. The son regularly meets a woman at Al-Ram; they sit in a car, hands caressing. Once, she defies Israeli guards at the checkpoint; later, ninja-like, she takes on soldiers at a target range. A red balloon floats free overhead. Neighbors toss garbage over walls. Life goes on until it doesn’t.
Fatima-Zahra and her teenage son Selim move from place to place, forever trying to outrun the latest scandal she’s caught up in. When Selim discovers the truth about their past, Fatima-Zahra vows to make a fresh start. In Tangier, new opportunities promise the legitimacy they each crave but not without pushing the volatile mother-son relationship to the breaking point.
Jesus, a carpenter living a simple life, discovers his destiny as the biblical Messiah.
Itto, a young woman from a modest rural background, is slowly adapting to the Moroccan privileged codes of her husband’s family. But when supernatural events put the country in a state of emergency, Itto finds herself separated from her husband and new family. Alone, pregnant and looking for her way back, she finds emancipation.
Halim has been married to Mina for a long time, with whom he runs a traditional caftan store in the medina (old town) of Salé, Morocco. The couple has always lived with Halim’s secret – his homosexuality – about which he has learned to keep quiet. However, Mina’s illness and the arrival of a young apprentice upsets this balance. United in their love, each will help the other face his fears.
After the murder of her two Scandinavian friends in Morocco, a Russian blogger decides to do her own justice.
Having just returned home, decorated U.S. Marine Captain Brad Paxton’s (Gary Dourdan) wife, Kate, is kidnapped by a terrorist group while working in Morocco. He is forced back into action for a daring and deadly operation to save the woman he loves.
This film speaks of archaic peoples, their customs and mores, in an attempt to make the last snapshots of their traditional lifestyles before they are gone for good.
The day after they get the word they’ll go home in two weeks, a group of soldiers from Spokane are ambushed in an Iraqi city. Back stateside we follow four of them – a surgeon who saw too much, a teacher who’s a single mom and who lost a hand in the ambush, an infantry man whose best friend died that day, and a soldier who keeps reliving the moment he killed a civilian woman.
The story of an unlikely encounter between Gordon, a hexapod operator, and Ayusha, a young woman from the Middle East. Gordon, guardian of a pipeline in this desert region, becomes fascinated by Ayusha, while piloting his robotic spider from the other side of the world, in America. Ayusha is promised to an older man she doesn’t love. Despite the distance, their mutual fear and their imperfect interaction, he will do everything in his power to help her escape her fate.
A chronicle of Gertrude Bell’s life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Afghanistan, 2006, Helmand Province becomes one of the most dangerous places on Earth as the British Army is deployed into the Taliban heartland. The Operation, Herrick, became synonymous with the struggle as British troops fought a losing battle against this unseen enemy.
Set in Tangier, Traitors tells the story of Maika, a calm, conservative girl by day and a leader of an all-girl punk group by night.
An intimate portrait of Matthew Shepard, the gay young man murdered in one of the most notorious hate crimes in U.S. history. Framed through a personal lens, it’s the story of loss, love, and courage in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
A Moroccan fisherman sets off on an epic journey towards Europe on his wind surfboard. But the pursuit of dreams does not come without sacrifice.
A whiplash thriller in the lean, mean TAKEN tradition from Howard J. Ford, Director/Co-Writer, of the past FrightFest favourites THE DEAD and THE DEAD 2: INDIA. Former FBI agent, now single mother Lisa Brennan, takes a holiday to escape an unhappy love affair and painful family memories. But in a heartbeat is not only faced with a daughter kidnapped by human traffickers, but also faces murder charges and must keep one step ahead of the foreign police. Fasten your seatbelts for spectacular twists, startling turns and breathless suspense in a jolt-a-minute journey no mother should go on!
Set in 1890, this is the story of a Pony Express courier who travels to Arabia to compete with his horse, Hidalgo, in a dangerous race for a massive contest prize, in an adventure that sends the pair around the world…
