The 15th edition of Middle East Now came to an end bringing strong emotions and a huge audience participation with many sold out screenings. The festival, which was held from 15 to 20 October 2024 at Cinema La Compagnia, Cinema Astra, Rifugio Digitale and on the online platform PiùCompagnia / MyMovies, confirmed once again its role of being an essential event to try to know and understand the complexity of the contemporary Middle East.
The international festival – which is part of the 50 Days of Cinema in Florence program – has always paid great attention to current events, and to the newest and most vibrant phenomena of cultures and societies from the contemporary Middle East, an attention that is even more important at the current times in which the Middle East is dramatically at the center of international politics.
Along a week the festival presented a rich program of events, followed by a large, passionate and involved audience, with crowded theaters for evening screenings, afternoons and matinee screenings – with 34 films (including 15 short films, 12 Italian premieres, 5 European and international premieres) awarded in the best international festivals, meetings with over 30 directors and guests invited to Florence to present the films and exchange with the audience.
The opening night was sold out with an audience from all over Italy to watch and listen the performance “Poems of Consumption” by one of the festival’s special guests, Hamed Sinno, the Lebanese-American musician and composer and former leader of the cult band Mashrou Leila, who has always been an activist for freedom of speech and gender. The festival screenings opened with the Italian premiere of “Diaries from Lebanon” (Lebanon, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 2024, 110’), followed by a Q&A that kept the audience glued to their seats for almost an hour, with many questions and a heartfelt discussion with the Lebanese director Myriam El Hajj.
Many other sold out events, including the Friday night screening of “No Other Land” (Palestine, Norway, 2024, 95′) by directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal (Palestinians) together with Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (Israelis), an award-winning documentary that is an act of creative resistance and search for a path towards equality and justice; and those of Saturday, which saw the Cinema La Compagnia packed since the morning for an intense program of special events, programming, the meeting with the Palestinian director and actor Mohammad Bakri, who presented his new film “Janin, Jenin” (Palestine, 2024, 60′), with an intense and emotional exchange with the audience in the room, and the evening that ended under the banner of Egypt with the screening of the beautiful “Retour en Alexandrie” (Switzerland, Egypt, Qatar, France, 2023, 90′) by Tamer Ruggli.
At the Closing Night was protagonist the film “Goodbye Julia” by Mohameed Kordofani (Sudan, Sweden, Germany, Saudi Arabia, France, Egypt, 2023, 120’), in the presence of the actress Siran Riak. The Sudanese film, winner of the Freedom Prize at Cannes, it is an intense portrait of two women, one Christian from the south and the other Muslim from the north, which well describes the difficulties and turmoil in this divided country still at war.
Here are all the winning films:
_ Middle East Now Audience Award 2024, the best film voted by the public went to the documentary NO OTHER LAND by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor (Palestine, Norway, 2024, 95’), ex-aequo with the feature film TO A LAND UNKNOWN by Mahdi Fleifel (Greece, Denmark, UK, Netherlands, Palestine, 2024, 106’).
_ The Iran-Afghanistan Cinema Award – Felicetta Ferraro 2024 went to THE GREAT YAWN OF HISTORY by Aliyar Rasti (Iran, 2024, 93’). For the jury composed of Mario Vitalone, Bianca Maria Filippini and Germana Rivi, Aliyar Rasti’s first feature film “represents with great expressive power, thanks to the intense acting performance of the two protagonists and magnificent photography, the transformative journey of two very different men who will guide each other.”
_ Best Short – Staff Award 2024, for the best short film assigned by the festival staff, goes to SORRY CINEMA by Ahmed Assouna, one of the 22 shorts of the collective project FROM GROUND ZERO (Palestine, France, Qatar, Jordan, 2024, 115’), “because it tells of people forced by violence to put their lives on hold for survival. Bombs can force a director to sacrifice his clapperboard to make firewood and cook. But they cannot prevent the testimony of the truth of what is happening in Gaza.” Special mention to THE SUN SET ON BEIRUT by Daniela Stephan (Lebanon, 17’, 2022), “for having recounted with extreme lucidity the suffering and hopes of two young women, against the backdrop of a destroyed Beirut”.
_ Best OFF Award for the best auteur short film awarded by the OFF Cinema association – and by the jury composed of Anacleto D’Agostino, Tina Magazzini, Théo Blanc – went to THE LAST WINTER by Hayder Dawood (Saudi Arabia, 2023, 27’), with the following motivation:
“For the exceptional poetic tale of a friendship that lasts and grows stronger through time and space. Two friends embark on a journey in the footsteps of a previous meeting in Sweden, reflecting on the role of cinema and the future of their country, Saudi Arabia.