Twin Cities Arab Film Festival: Shorts Segment: Memories and Hauntings

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About

19th Arab Film Festival

Saturday, September 27 at 2:45 PM

Memory sustains. It anchors us and keeps us rooted and in touch with our histories, both personal and collective. But memory also haunts. The past can often manifest in ways that stifle our movements forward. The films in this segment make us reconsider the importance of both memory and forgetting and of making spaces to reimagine the present through a reckoning with the past.

ABOUT THE FILMS

KHALED AND NEMA

Dir. Sohail Dahdal • Palestine • 2024 • Arabic • 17 min
A ten-year-old Bedouin boy, Khaled, and his trusted goat, Nema, embark on a mission to bring Abu Mariam’s memory back to save their village from demolition by the Israeli army.

2006

Dir. Gabriella Choueifaty • France, Lebanon • 2023 • Arabic • 23 min
As war rages in Lebanon in 2006, thirteen-year-old Sariah tries to lead a normal life with her older sister and her mother. While they are confined to their mountain home overlooking Beirut, time seems to stand still as each of them tries to escape their isolated environment, causing old tensions to resurface.

PERISHABLE IDOL

Dir. Majid Al-Remaih • France, Kuwait, Qatar • 2025 • Arabic • 19 min
As the blue sky meets the surrounding seas, the native-turned-archeologist Hassan Al-Failakawy returns to the abandoned island of Failaka, off the coast of Kuwait. Between the island’s desolation and the ruins created by the Gulf War, Hassan is met with questions about return, restitution, and belonging.

FROM MY MOTHER’S NOVEL

Dir. Fatima Joumaa • Lebanon • 2025 • Arabic • 9 min
Fatima, a young photographer, returns to Southern Lebanon after capturing the grief and resilience of her war-torn homeland through her lens. At home, she delves into her mother Layla’s old book of photographs. As Fatima’s photographs intertwine with her mother’s reflections, the film explores themes of grief, resilience, and the vital role of women as memory keepers.

UPSHOT

Dir. Maha Haj • Palestine, Italy, France • 2024 • Arabic • 34 min
Aging couple Suleiman and Mona lead a solitary life in which they care for animals and trees and have constant heated discussions about their children’s life choices. One day, their routine is disturbed when a stranger shows up, calling to mind a painful past.

PRESENTED BY MIZNA

Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than 25 years, Mizna has been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.