Look at Me - Cinéma Arabe

Lotfi has got it made: his white goods company in Marseille is doing well and his girlfriend is pregnant with their first child. His hot temper gets him into trouble sometimes, but a man has to stand up for himself, right? Then he is told that his ex-wife in Tunis is in a coma caused by a cerebral hemorrhage and that he now has custody of his son, who he walked out on seven years ago.

This confronts Lotfi with a reality he has been hiding all this time. He would prefer to keep it that way, but is he still able to? Or has the moment come to put aside his urge to prove himself and his ideas about manhood, in order to become a father?

Thu 9 May with short-film:
Yousef
Mohamed Hossameldin | Italy 2018 | drama | 14 min. | Italian, French spoken – English subtitles
After a long procedure Yousef, a successful chef who grew up in Italy as the child of immigrants, is granted the Italian nationality. But what does it mean to be a dark-skinned Italian after the racist attack in Macerata? The subjective soundtrack and montage shape Yousef’s identity crisis.

Sat 11 May with short-film:
Before I Forget
Razan Hassan | Netherlands | 2018 | social drama | 11 min. | English spoken – English subtitles
 Memories fade, transform, disappear. If only you could activate the write protection, like with old cassette tapes. Filmmaker Razan Hassan brought one of those tapes with her from Syria, the only sound recording from her childhood. In the Netherlands she tries to unlock this carefully kept piece of her identity.