Review – Films & Documentaries

For all the talk about the Palestinian cause and the travel restrictions faced by Palestinians, most commentary on the issue tends to be in general terms. Very few attempts...

When life in Egypt becomes too trying for a group of Syrian refugees who have escaped the war back home they decide to make the journey like thousands before...

One windy day out at the seaside Poppy spends most of the time asking her parents when it's time to leave; a normal day for a teenage girl until...

There is a moment towards the beginning of Marsha Emerman’s award-winning documentary On the Banks of the Tigris in which the protagonist and co-collaborator of the film Majid Shokor...

Upon seeing the world première of Anthony Horowitz's new play "Dinner with Saddam" at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, one can't help but feel awkward and uncomfortable at...

Last week, London's British Film Institute hosted the preview of "A Syrian Love Story" a documentary by Independent newspaper journalist Sean McAllister who, over a period of five years,...

Set in the French port of Sète, Couscous takes us through the dramas in the family life of central character Slimane Beiji, a 61-year old immigrant from Tunisia. The...

Love is blind, or so the saying goes. In Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, though, it is all too often not allowed to be. Director Michel Khleifi's documentary...

It seems every television production set in the Middle East or North Africa has an obligatory scene where a woman is stoned to death. The one in new BBC...

It's April 2002 and the Second Intifada has engulfed cities across the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In Bethlehem, a group of armed fighters have fled to one of the world's...

The Mulberry House, which was screened over the weekend as part of the Barbican's "I/Eye in Conflict" film series, is an intimate account of daily life for the film...

"He was a bird in love with a fish, separating them was the thin line of water, which they broke together for just one kiss. This is their brief...

"The first thing to know about Iran is that it's not evil." Uttered with a coy smile and a knowing glint in the eye, these are the words of...

Since 1979, Iran has banned women from singing solo in public. The year marked the beginning of the Islamic Revolution and the start of a clampdown on Iranian society....

It is 2001 and a group of men escaping persecution from the Chinese authorities journey to Afghanistan and Pakistan seeking refuge. They are all Uyghurs, a persecuted minority of...

The period of 1987-1991 marked one of the most explosive and unsettling times for Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation. Known ubiquitously as the First Intifada, or "uprising", these...

"Films always bring this personal, individual narrative to the story, which I don't think you find so easily elsewhere," comments Andrea Holley, strategic director of the Human Rights Watch...

Voices censored by the Israeli army for nearly 50 years can finally be heard in powerful documentary that recently premiered in the Sundance Film Festival. After an initial introduction...

The British media's coverage of the civil war in Syria since 2011 has been simply woeful. From the start is has been dominated by the illusions and self-interest of...

It's 2012 and Tarek, a water engineer from the West Bank, is guarding a dark secret from the Second Intifada. A flashback to 2002 reveals Tarek returning home one...

"Whenever you have mutual interests between even two enemies and they agree on how to deal with it so they both profit that's perfect, that's exactly what you want...

When the Merowe Dam was built on the Nile in Sudan, life for the villagers of Abu Haraz would change forever In the small village of Abu Haraz in...

When Sara Ishaq returns to Yemen after ten years abroad reconnecting with the Scottish half of her roots she finds the country she grew up is on the brink...

Abdul Basset Saroot, goalkeeper of the Syrian national youth football team turned armed opposition fighter, is now classed as a terrorist by Bashar Al-Assad. The army raided his neighbourhood...

In apartheid South Africa marriage between black and white people was prohibited and white-only jobs sanctioned. Areas designated as white were destroyed by bulldozers and the black population living...

"He was a man seeking power. He would do anything to achieve his goals, regardless of anyone. Even if you were a close friend he'd send you to jail....

"If the Nakba signifies the expulsion of the Palestinian citizen from his land, and seizing his land by force, then the Nakba began decades before 1948." It is this...

"The Israeli blockade may have taken a heavy toll on Gazans, but this film reveals life and hope among the devastation." Kamal Khalaf is a construction worker and father...

Today around 300,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, yet only 2% of them have work permits. Lebanese law bans Palestinians from working in most professions; those that do work...

"It's better to die as a Fidaï than a man of the people," says Med El Hadi Benadouda on his life as one of the mujahideen soldiers whose goal...

"In the film I will document a legal system; a system which organizes the rule of law in the territories we conquered in 1967. This is a unique system....

26 former European leaders, including former Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and European Commissioners, have written a letter to EU President Van Rompuy and High Representative Catherine Ashton, calling...