A host of stellar movie releases from the Middle East made 2022 a remarkable year for filmmaking across the region. We’re ending this year by looking back through some of these triumphs of cinema, so that you can start 2023 with a ready-made list of films to watch with one common theme: the courage, strength and triumph over adversity of remarkable people from across the Middle East.
Bear witness to the resilience of Palestinians during the Nakba with Farha, gain a sense of the struggles faced by the defiant artists and filmmakers working under Iranian censorship in Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, see life through the eyes of a Syrian family starting a new life in Belgium in My Paper Life, follow Yusra and Sara Mardini’s awe-inspiring journey from Damascus, across Europe, to the 2016 Olympics in Rio in The Swimmers, and feel true fear with Reem, a Palestinian woman up against an impossible situation in Huda’s Salon.
Farha | Darin Sallam
Already a favourite at film festivals across the world, Farha made headlines when it began streaming on Netflix at the beginning of December. Farha tells the true story of a young Palestinian girl caught in the wave of massacres which took place across Palestine during the Nakba, the ‘Catastrophe’, in which more than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced and more than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed in 1948. Hidden in a pantry by her desperate father as Israeli soldiers approach their village, Farha secretly witnesses the murders of a family with two young children who had taken shelter in her home. Her father never returns, and Farha must figure out how to escape and survive.
The film, its stars and crew have been subject to scathing attacks by Israeli critics, social media harassment, a ‘downvoting’ campaign on IMDb, and there were even government sanctions against an Israeli theatre which dared to show it. Keep an eye out for Farha at the Oscars – it will be Jordan’s submission to the Best International Film category at the Academy Awards in March 2023.
No Bears | Jafar Panahi
No Bears is another subtle and complex work from prize-winning Iranian director and screenwriter Jafar Panahi, who is famed for his careful critiques of social and political issues in Iran. Until earlier this year, Panahi had managed to creep past government censorship and restrictions and thwart a 20-year filmmaking ban to win top awards at Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals. However, Panahi was arrested in Tehran this July after requesting information from the prosecutor’s office as to the whereabouts of two fellow Iranian filmmakers who had been arrested a few days prior. He is now serving a six-year sentence for ‘propaganda against the system’.
Completed only months before his arrest, No Bears blurs the lines between reality and fiction, with Panahi playing a version of himself as a director covertly making a film about a couple attempting to flee Iran. The project soon unravels, as the film crew is accused of capturing a photograph of a soon-to-be-bride meeting with a man who is not her betrothed, drawing the wrath of the village elders and threatening their cover story.
The Swimmers | Sally El Hosaini
Sally El Hosaini, the award-winning director and screenwriter of Henna Night and My Brother the Devil, this year turned her talent to the astonishing true story of Sara and Yusra Mardini. Both gifted swimmers, the two sisters from the suburbs of Damascus had their world turned upside down by the outbreak of war and were forced to swim for their lives as they fled Syria. Portrayed by real-life sisters Manal and Natalie Issa, Sara and Yusra’s story is brought to the screen in heartrending detail, from their extraordinary heroism on their ill-fated crossing to Lesbos to Yusra’s triumphant journey to the 2016 Olympics.
Although the sisters’ own ordeal in the waters of the Mediterranean is over, they are still working tirelessly to fight for the rights and safety of refugees. Not long after her arrival, Sara Mardini left her new life and safety in Germany to return to the refugee camps on Lesbos as a volunteer with Emergency Response Center International. In August 2018, she was arrested in Greece with two fellow humanitarians, facing accusations of smuggling and espionage, charges which Human Rights Watch say seek to “criminalise humanitarian activism”. Sara spent 107 days in prison before being bailed out. Her trial will begin in January 2023.
My Paper Life | Vida Dena
In her debut feature film, Iranian filmmaker Vida Dena tells the story of a Syrian family seeking a new life in the safety of Brussels. Merging intimate, home-video style footage of the family in their home with poignant stop-motion animation using the children’s drawings, this film is a stirring exploration of what it means to come to terms with the past while trying to begin again.
A multi-disciplinary artist and an Iranian in self-exile, Dena draws on her fine art background as well as her own personal understanding of immigration, identity and loss to weave together this beautiful documentary.
Huda’s Salon | Hany Abu-Assad
Although technically released towards the end of 2021, we couldn’t leave Huda’s Salon off this list as one of our top films of 2022. The seemingly innocuous setting of the opening scene of this gripping thriller belies the hefty punch this film packs. The latest piece of work by celebrated Palestinian-Dutch director Hany Abu-Assad, Huda’s Salon is an edge of the seat watch from start to finish. We watch as a convivial chat at the salon in Bethlehem in the Occupied West Bank takes a dark turn when Huda forces her client Reem into an unimaginable situation (skip the trailer if you’d prefer to save the full impact of the scene). Armed with potent evidence to blackmail Reem, Huda then reveals that she is an informer for the occupying Israeli secret service, and that Reem has no choice but to join her. Caught between betraying her community or risking everything if her jealous husband finds out what has happened, Reem is plunged even further into danger when Huda is captured by Palestinian agents determined to root out the traitors among them.
Did your favourites from this year make the list? Let us know your film highlights of 2022!
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