Focus on Syria at the 10th Annual Arab Film Festival

The Arab Film Festival will celebrate the 10th anniversary with more than 40 films representing over 12 countries. With a combination of acclaimed fiction films, hard-hitting documentaries and unusual short films, the 2006 festival will showcase a broad range of themes and styles including a rare Focus on Syrian Cinema.

Tickets
Tickets may be purchased online before the event or at the door. Tickets purchased online may be picked up at the theater 30 minutes prior to showtime.
Single-show tickets: $10
Senior/Student discount: $8
Weekend screenings before 1pm: $5
For more information and the complete 2006 program, please visit www.aff.org

Under the Ceiling preceded by Oh Night!
Dir. Nidal el-Dibs
Feature Film
Syria / 2004 / 35mm / 90 min
Co-presented with the Pacific Film Archive
Showtimes:
Stanford University, Cubberley Auditorium, 9/11, 6:30 pm

Forty years of stories fall from the ceiling, leaking in Marwan's room. Under that ceiling, his closest friend and hero suddenly dies, leaving a widow, Lina, whom Marwan once loved. In a city exhausted by the legacy of its past, the two protagonists are faced with new possibilities, but they are weighed down by lost dreams and thwarted revolutions. Will they remain trapped, re-invent their story or find a new life for themselves? The film is one of the first to portray the angst of 40-something urban professionals in Syria. Under the Ceiling is the filmmaker's first fiction feature, after his first short, Oh Night!, received critical acclaim in Syria and worldwide.

FREE Screening
Stars in Broad Daylight
Dir. Oussama Mohammad
Feature Film
Syria / 1988 / 35mm / 115 min
Showtimes:
Stanford University, Cubberley Auditorium, 9/12, 6:30 pm

A double wedding in a village rings of drama when one of the two brides runs away and the other refuses to go on with her marriage. The drama unveils a fragile family hanging in the balance: from the unsettled father to the youngest son, rendered deaf by a violent blow in childhood. Though weight-riddled, the film rattles with biting humor and sharp political critique, exposing how absolute power in a patriarchal society can seep into the family unit. Stars in Broad Daylight, Oussama Mohammad's first full-length feature, remains banned from screening in Syria because of its subversive and critical voice. Selected at the "Quinzaine des Réalisateurs" at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988.
Print Source: www.arteeast.org

Sacrifices
Dir. Oussama Mohammad
Feature Film
Syria / 2002 / 35mm / 113 min
Co-presented with the Pacific Film Archive
Showtimes:
San Francisco, Roxie Cinema, 9/14, 6:30 pm

Sacrifices is a fantastic and visually captivating cinematic fable, which reflects on how violence and power legitimize themselves, producing rituals and a vocabulary to perpetuate them. A large family is held together by the absolute power of a patriarch, the grandfather, who fertilized the land, started the family, built the house and planted the large tree around which their lives revolve. The film opens as the patriarch is dying and the family surrounds him in their anguish and uncertainty. Life begins with death, young men are born as the patriarch expires, fathers and heroes come back from the war front only to dissolve into mud. Selected at Cannes Film Festival's "Un Certain Regard".

At Our Listeners’ Request preceded by Our Hands
Dir. Abdellatif Abdul-Hamid
Feature Film
Syria / 2003 / 35mm / 89 min
Co-presented with the Pacific Film Archive
Showtimes:
San Jose, Camera 12, 9/10, 12:00 pm

The film also known as "For the Pleasure of Our Listeners" was released to wide acclaim both in Syria and beyond. A group of villagers huddle every week around their only radio to listen to their favorite program, "At Our Listeners' Request," where listeners request songs and send messages to loved ones. The film follows intersecting stories from the program: A woman will not marry her suitor unless their song gets played; another young woman declares her love to her beau through dedicated songs, though their union takes a tragic turn. The film is an homage to the "radio days" of the Arab world, when the medium brought the world closer together and conquered the imagination of all, with songs of love and longing.