Films, Food & Exhibitions at ‘Middle East Now’

The moving image continues to captivate and influence international audiences to this day; as a showcase for a powerful medium, there is an important event in Florence every April: The Middle East Now Festival.

Cinema La Compagnia (via Cavour 50/r) hosts the screenings, with subtitles in English and Italian, from April 10 – 15. Admission is €5 for afternoon shows and €6 for evening shows, with reduced price of €4 and €5 for respectively for those under 30 and over 65.

A retrospective and premiere will be reserved for Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir, one of the pioneers of contemporary Arab cinema. She has written, directed and produced over 16 films, a handful which will be showing at Middle East Now. These include: “Wajib” (2017), which will inaugurate the festival at 9 pm on Tuesday, April 10 at Cinema La Compagnia; and “Like Twenty Impossibles” (2003) on Friday, April 13 (10:30 pm). Jacir’s “Salt of This Sea” (2008), scheduled for Wednesday, April 11 at 9 pm, was the first Palestinian short film selected at Cannes Film festival; and the winner of the NETPAC prize at the Berlin International Film Festival and Palestine’s submission for the Oscars, “When I Saw You” (2012), will be screened Friday, April 13 (10:30 pm).

Middle East Now will also feature numerous documentaries throughout the week, dedicated to sharing true stories of the Middle Eastern experience through cinematic works from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kurdistan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE and Sudan. The 41 movies on the program and 19 short films comprise 31 Italian premieres, six European premieres and one world premiere. Beyond cinema, the festival will portray contemporary Middle Eastern art, theatre, music, food, talks, DJ sets, and special events.

“Our Syria. Recipes from Home,” a cookbook written by Dina Mousawi and Itab Azzam sharing the secrets and recipes of Syrian cooking will be presented on April 14 (8 pm) at Cinema La Compagnia, followed by an aperitivo. Earlier on the same day, the pair will also lead a cooking lesson at the Cordon Bleu culinary school (Via Giusti, 7) from 10:30 am – 2 pm.

Thanks to a collaboration with the Crossway Foundation which promotes young creatives in the Middle East, Ahaad Alamoudi, a Saudi Arabia native educated in England, will be the artist in residence at Villa La Pietra, at the NYU campus in Florence.  She recently completed her studies at the Royal College of Art in London, and currently teaches at a university in Jeddah.

At Cinema La Compagnia, Alamoudi will inaugurate a video installation on the works of women artists inspired by Florence.

A photography show, The People’s Salon by Tamara Abdul Hadi, celebrates the social importance of the salon in the Middle East and the talent of hairdressers from Beirut, Gaza and Ramallah, along with analyzing the idea of male vanity. The exhibition will open at Fondazione Studio Marangoni (Via San Zanobi 32/r, Florence) on April 13 at 6 pm, and includes a talk by artist at 6:30 pm. The display can be visited until May 13 (hours: Monday – Saturday 10 am – 1 pm and 3 – 7 pm; free admission).

Visit www.middleastnow.it for the full program. (berfin altinsik)