In the Name of Love: Self-identification in MENA Female Cinema

Overview

Sharjah Art Foundation presents a series of online film screenings in collaboration with Habibi Collective, a digital film archive that celebrates the work of female filmmakers from the Middle East and North Africa. Taking place on 29 May, 12 June and 26 June 2020, the screenings will feature award-winning short and feature-length narrative, documentary and experimental films by female artists from the Arab world. The first programme of films, screening on 29 May, is titled In the Name of Love: Self-identification in MENA Female Cinema.

Beyond issues of representation, filmmaking has offered itself as a tool for women to explore their own subjectivity and sense of becoming. The five films in this programme deconstruct mainstream narratives of maternal bonds, beauty standards, love stories, cooking and the archiving of memories. They offer alternative ways of seeing by rewriting visual codes through the eyes of the traditional ‘other’. Recognising the differences that draw us together, these films reflect on how seeing ourselves through our own eyes can be the most creative path towards self-love.

Screening Information

The Story of Milk and Honey (2011)
Director: Basma Alsharif
Lebanon
Experimental | 10 minutes
Arabic with English subtitles

Clams Casino (2018)
Director: Pam Nasr
United States
Narrative ǀ 11 minutes
English

The Fall of the Standard of Beauty: The Iranian Nose
(2019)
Director: Sahar Ghorishi
United Kingdom
Documentary | 11 minutes
English with Farsi subtitles

Staff of Life (2019)
Director: Moza Almatrooshi
United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom
Documentary | 5 minutes
Arabic, Farsi and Urdu with English subtitles

Chergui (2019)
Director: Chahine Fellahi
Morocco
Experimental | 5 minutes
No dialogue

The livestream of the five films, which will be screened consecutively in the order they are listed above, can be accessed at 8:30 pm on 29 May 2020 through the link below. As the films cannot be streamed on demand, viewers who join the streaming after 8:30 pm will not be able to watch the full programme.

Click here to watch on full screen