A documentary on the life and ambitions of a young Syrian trans woman. The film follows her journey from soldier to cabaret dancer in an effort to raise funds for her sex-change operation. Shot in Beirut, 

 weaves a complex and multi-layered story of sexuality, identity and desire and paints a compelling portrait of its subject.

Cinema Al Fouad

weaves together the stories of Hattab and his grandmother Yousra to reflect on fluid modes of belonging. Yousra was expelled from her village Jamaseen Al-Garbi by Zionist paramilitary groups in 1948, and she remains witness to the decline of Jaffa’s glory where she resettled after the Nakba. On the other hand, Hattab, presented as a hybrid mermaid and a symbol of the shores of Manshiyyeh (North of Tel Aviv), embodies both the liminality of those who were driven out of Palestine and the longing desire to belong to the Palestinian nation.

HOURIA

This is a short film about the first time I met the organizer and members of the "Iran Transsexual Support Society" in the summer of 2006 in Tehran. The group went on to play a pivotal role in bringing visibility and acceptance of sexual minorities in Iran until the death of its founder Ms. Maryam Khatoon Molkara in 2012.

Legacy Of The Imam: Iran's Transsexual Support Society

As times harden in the Arab world, people have begun to recall the greatest diva of all time: Asmahan, the Syrian princess who emigrated to Egypt in the twenties and became an entertainer. Today, traces of the Cairo that Asmahan once loved are difficult to find in the blanket of apathy that weighs on the city. It was in Cairo that Asmahan sang her famous song “Euphoric Nights in Vienna”(1944), in which she manufactured an Arab fantasy for the European city. Today, many Arabs go to Vienna in search of the dream whispered to them by the greatest diva. 

But things are not quite that simple. Asmahan is not the angel everyone imagines her to be. Behind her angelic face are dark secrets, and it is time we stopped being manipulated by Asmahan’s unbearable presence.

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Arabic