Middle Eastern
see all genres ›The region that stretches from Western Asia to Northern Africa encompasses ancient civilizations, diverse cultures and conflicts whose roots can go back centuries (all fascinating fodder for the movies).
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Genres / International / Middle Eastern
SUB-GENRES · Iranian · Iraqi · Israeli · Yemeni · Lebanese · Syrian · Armenian · Emirati · Kuwaiti · Jordanian · Palestinian
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Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog travelled to Kuwait with producer/cameraman Paul Berriff to shoot the oil fires left blazing by the retreating Iraqi soldiers after the Gulf War. Faced with flames spewing from the earth, a landscape blackened by fire and oil and plumes of dark smoke choking the...Watch Movie
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Fireworks Wednesday
From the two-time Academy Award® winning director of THE SALESMAN and A SEPARATION, Asghar Farhadi's FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY is a gripping, suspenseful drama – a story of marital intrigue and betrayal set against the backdrop of the Persian New Year. Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is...Watch Movie
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Plaisir d'amour en Iran
How can you talk about love when you're looking at a mosque or talk about architecture in bed? This short film is a variation on the amorous outpourings of Pomme and Ali Darius (in ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN'T) but it could also be any couple's dream in such an ideal setting...Watch Movie
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Orchestra of Exiles
The thrilling story of how one man helped save Europe's premiere Jewish musicians from obliteration by the Nazis. In the early 1930's Hitler began firing Jewish musicians across Europe. Overcoming extraordinary obstacles, violinist Bronislaw Huberman moved these great...Watch Movie
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The White Meadows
The otherworldly salt islands of Iran’s Lake Urmia provide the fittingly surreal setting for director Mohammad Rasoulof’s mesmerizing fable. "I've come to listen to people’s heartaches and take away tears," says an old boatman as he rows among the gray waters and white salt...Watch Movie
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Closed Curtain
Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi bravely defies his twenty-year ban on filmmaking yet again, and stunningly, he has created a masterpiece that not only lives up to his earlier, pre-ban work but surpasses it in many ways. In a secluded house by the sea with the curtains shut, a...Watch Movie
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Jellyfish
Poignant, often witty and exceedingly cinematic, JELLYFISH tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv women whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the...Watch Movie
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Pinhas
Pinhas and his mother are new immigrants from Russia. While his mother barely makes a living working night shifts, she devotes her spare time to the affair she has with a married man. On the third floor lives a religious family, and Pinhas is drawn to their warmth and unity. There he meets a girl...Watch Movie
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The Sniper of Kobani
Kurdish filmmaker Reber Dosky travelled through Kurdistan and visited the town of Kobani in Syria, close to the Turkish border. In Kobani, the fighting between Kurdish resistance and Islamic State has been particularly fierce. Islamic State attacked the town in October 2014...Watch Movie
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Unmistaken Child
The Buddhist concept of reincarnation, while both mysterious and enchanting, is hard for most westerners to grasp. UNMISTAKEN CHILD follows the four-year search for the reincarnation of Lama Konchog, a world-renowned Tibetan master who passed away in 2001 at age 84. The Dalai...Watch Movie
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Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt
The German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt caused an uproar in the 1960s by coining the subversive concept of the "Banality of Evil" when referring to the trial of Adolph Eichmann, which she covered for the New Yorker magazine. Her private life was no less controversial...Watch Movie
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Fifi Howls from Happiness
Mitra Farahani's lyrical documentary explores the enigma of provocative artist Bahman Mohassess, the so-called "Persian Picasso," whose acclaimed paintings and sculptures dominated pre-revolutionary Iran. Irreverent and uncompromising, a gay man in a hostile world, Mohassess...Watch Movie
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Censored Voices
In June of 1967 the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria massed on Israel's borders and threatened its destruction. Israel launched a preemptive strike and achieved a stunning and decisive victory nearly tripling its size with the occupation of the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan...Watch Movie
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The Sheik and I
Commissioned by a Middle Eastern Biennial to make a film on the theme of "art as a subversive act," independent filmmaker Caveh Zahedi goes overboard. Told that he can do whatever he wants except make fun of the Sheik of Sharjah (who rules the country and finances the Biennial), Zahedi decides to...Watch Movie
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Remembering the Pentagons
REMEMBERING THE PENTAGONS is a slow, rhythmic journey into filmmaker Azadeh Navai's earliest childhood memories. With an old 16mm Bolex and a hand-made pinhole camera, Navai returns to Tehran and Esfahan, Iran, where the perceptions and recollections of places, emotions and...Watch Movie
