Post-natal obsessions.

Angel is confronted with the consequences of the domestic violence that he perpetrated against his wife, Graciela, and their children over a period of many years. His desire to get his family back gives him the strength to begin a process of soul-searching and to face up to the profound changes of attitude and habits that are essential before real change can take place. Ready to overcome his own existential void, he embarks on the painful process of searching for the roots of the violence he suffered as a child as a result of his disrespect for his Mazahua culture and his mother language.

The people of Pankisi Gorge believe that all the important issues of their lives and deaths should be solved through mediation of a favored authority. Altzaney is a woman who interferes in other people’s lives and takes responsibility for it. She mediates between conflicting sides and the two worlds. Altzaney is the only woman trusted to take care of the dead.What makes her so distinguished and authoritative in a totally patriarchal environment, and what is the price she has to pay for it? Altzaney gives an insight into a unique community of Pankisi Gorge.

The director travels with a group of young Moroccan women who are going to visit their families. A story about migration, reunion, and loss.

a.k.a. Kathe is a portrait of a Mexican-American family from Tuckson, Arizona confronting the loss of a family member, Kathe. Kathe was fatally shot by a young man who through the course of this documentary is trailed and sentenced to only one year. The portrait of the life of a drug-addicted street prostitute, it also shows the repeating cycle of violence towards women.

Through the story of Bir'im, a destroyed Palestinian village, we encounter Nahida and two other women from the kibbutz built on its land. The trio's moving story focuses on a struggle for the return of the villagers to their homeland, a central issue in the Palestinian experience.

Janata Bennuna is from Morocco; Hanan Al Shaykh is from Lebanon; and Nawal Al Saadawi is from Egypt. All three are authors of the Arab word, committed intellectuals who shed light on the complex social reality of the Arab world through their books. In their hands, literature becomes a weapon through which to draw attention to and denounce situations that they oppose. The three women, from a generation heavily influenced by Pan-Arabism, initially studied against the wishes of their families, but ended up gaining their support. In A Woman's Word, these three very different writers who nonetheless share a common ground talk about their lives and their work. By learning about them, we also gain an insight into the Arab world, which is much more complex than the Manichean and mostly malicious information on the subject that predominates in our own society today. They too are Arabs, women, who refuse the victim mentality, and demand their rights through their work and their commitment.

A new episode of the author's personal video diary. Every day life seen through psychological problems. Available online until December 20th, 2020. Courtesy of Harvard Film Archive.

Video Concerning the Arab World

TransArab Itinerant 2003-2005

2003 / 2005 / 2006 / 2009 - TransArab

Video Concerning the Arab World

This programme is not intended to provide an overview of independent video in Arab and Islamic countries, nor does it seek to be representative in any way.

The works being presented, like the programme as a whole, reflect the notion of “slices of reality”, in the sense that they are subjective visions, aware of their partiality, which do not exclude contradiction or conflict. Visions that perceive a strong tension on their surface and take up these eddies of confusion and violence as cause for  urgent reflection and knowledge.

Images and stories, realities in themselves, rhizomatic realities: interwoven without a centre or a fixed meaning. And for that very reason, instead of giving rise to cultural dualism based on opposition, they engender a web of underground connections.