film
This year has been anything but easy, but 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 these triumphs of cinema, so that you can start 2023 with a ready-made list of outstanding and poignant films to watch. Bear witness to the horrors of the Nakba with Farha, gain a sense of the struggles faced by 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 perilous journey to safety in The Swimmers, and feel true fear with Reem, a Palestinian woman whose life is plunged into disaster in Huda’s Salon.
Here are some amazing good news stories from across the Middle East worth celebrating this year, not to mention some that gave us a giggle!
If you want to learn more about the situation in Palestine but aren’t sure where to start, this list contains seven movies, short films, and documentaries to help you understand what’s happening and how we got here.
Thanks to the wonders of the internet, this schedule for a day of Arabic #WorkFromHome goodness will transport you to sunny Jordan. Squeezing tonnes of Arabic practice into your normal daily schedule, this plan for a day of immersion in Levantine Ammiya will do wonders for your language skills (but we warn you, it may come with a side order of wanderlust).
In the following list you’ll find a mixture of different platforms ranging from traditional media outlets to inherently modern and dynamic projects, sharing arts and culture from across the Arab world.
Watching films and box-sets in Arabic is a brilliant way to improve your listening skills and to familiarise yourself with the Arabic language. The following list of Arabic movies and TV shows from across the Middle East features a range of different dialects and will help you start improving your Arabic from your couch!
The following tips and hacks will help you to build an Arabic study habit into your daily routine so you can learn from your home, for free.
With the outbreak of Corona virus causing havoc around the world, we want to send our thoughts and best wishes to our community at this difficult and confusing time. If you’re staying home at the moment for whatever reason, we’ve put together a list of 6 tips and recommendations to help you look after your mental health and use this time positively for things you might not otherwise have time for, like reading or learning a language.
You may have seen the news of the recent successes of Syrian wife, mother and filmmaker Waad al-Kateab’s remarkable documentary, For Sama. We thought this would be an excellent opportunity to showcase and celebrate Waad’s story and her success, along with some of the other great achievements of Arab women in film in recent years. Below are three incredible films from inspiring female directors from the Arab World that you absolutely need to watch!