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Oct
20
2006

Arab Films Take Over The Oscars!!  (Well…not exactly)

Posted by Propagandin at 6:18pm.

Posted in Film News , Middle East.

bosta.jpg

I realize that Twitch has covered the foreign-language official Oscar submissions previously this month but since five of them are from Arab countries, I thought I’d take this opportunity to examine those more closely.  For the record, five films may not seem like a big accomplishment to you, since this represents only about 25% of all Arab countries, but when you take into account countries like Saudi Arabia, that have zero movie theatres, this feels really big. Good job guys! 

Of the five that have been submitted, I’ve already discussed Egypt’s The Yacoubian Building and Algeria’s Indigenes. 

From Lebanon is Bosta by Philippe Aractingi. Lebanese people LOVE this movie.  It’s a crowd-pleasing dance/road-trip story.  Think The Muppet Movie meets Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights.  (That’s a complete lie.  But, seriously, how incredible would that be!?) Watch the trailer.  There are no subtitles, but who needs words when you have the language of dance and heavy make-up?  A useful fun fact: This was the first Lebanese film entirely financed by Lebanese money.  Be sure to drop that at your next dinner party and you’re sure to win new friends. 

Website and trailer here.

From Iraq is Dreams (Ahlaam) by Mohamed Al-Daradji.  They’re claiming this is the first feature shot in Iraq since the fall of Saddam.  That’s not entirely true considering Oday Rasheed’s Underexposure took that prize in 2003.  Either way, Ahlaam has gotten some good reviews from international press. 

Website, trailer and press found here.

From Morocco is The Moroccan Symphony by Kamal Kamal.  Not much online besides a synopsis.  I’ll keep looking.

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Reader Comments

  1. Jason 10/21/2006 @ 12:22am

    That Bosta film looks insane.
    Hope we get it for next years International Film Festival.

    Saudi Arabia have NO movie theatres? Woah!

    Glad you’re onboard here at Twitch.

  2. Kurt 10/21/2006 @ 1:55pm

    Yea, I’ve been meaning to update that thread on Foreign Language Nominations, a few have changed since that post…

  3. Isabelle Stead 11/27/2006 @ 11:14am

    Hi there,

    Thank you for mentioning AHLAAM, yes you are correct AHLAAM is one of the first films out of Iraq at the fall of Saddam’s regime and as we are aware there was another film in production at this time, although this has been misrepresented in the press.

    If you could recommend any other websites that might be interested in running a story on Ahlaam we would really appreciate it as we could use all the help there is.

    Cheerio,
    Isabelle

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