Lubna Azabal

– 2018 THESSALONIKI — FIPRESCI Prize
– 2018 CARTHAGE — Special Mention, Best First Work
– 2018 BRATISLAVA — Best Director
– 2018 CANNES — Un Certain Regard-Best Screenplay

Sofia, who is in denial of her pregnancy, gets labor pains during a family meal with guests. Thanks to her med student cousin Lena’s vigilance, they go to a hospital without alerting anyone and she delivers her baby. However, her family aside, bureaucracy and laws get involved as well: if she won’t reveal the identity of the father, the hospital will need to inform the authorities. In her feature-length debut, Meryem Benm’barek delivers a thorough and striking analysis of class differences, gender inequality, matriarchal traditions, and taboos that form the fabric of Moroccan society starting off from article 490 of the country’s penal code which sanctions prison sentences for sexual relations out of wedlock.Read More »

A portrayal of a family torn apart over a little Muslim boy’s future.Read More »

Quote:
A middle-aged tailor and his wife find their relationship turned upside down by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice.Read More »

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.Read More »

Paradise Now (Arabic: الجنّة الآن‎) is a 2005 film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.

“The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue,” Abu-Assad said. “The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing.”Read More »

Quote:
Abla runs a modest local bakery from her home in Casablanca where she lives alone with her 8-year-old daughter, Warda. When Samia, a young pregnant woman knocks on their door, Abla is far from imagining that her life will change forever.Read More »