Twin Cities Arab Film Festival: We Never Left + Like a Spiral

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About

19th Arab Film Festival

Friday, September 26 at 4:30 PM

The screening of We Never Left (83 min) is preceded by Like a Spiral (28 min).

ABOUT We Never Left

Dir. Loulwa Khoury • USA, Lebanon • 2024 • Arabic and English • 83 min
When civil protests erupted in Lebanon on October 17, 2019, Lebanese expats in New York and around the world gathered rapidly to stand in solidarity with their people on the ground. This documentary weaves together the demands and protests in Lebanon with the experiences and organizing work of Lebanese students living in New York. While they come from different backgrounds, their common goals and dreams to return home some day to a civilized and democratic Lebanon fuels and sustains their relationships. Considering the impacts of political organizing from afar, We Never Left examines the situation in contemporary Lebanon through the eyes and dreams of young people living abroad who have an irrepressible love for their homeland.

FILMMAKER BIO

Loulwa Khoury is a New York–based filmmaker and editor born and raised in Beirut. She has edited award-winning feature documentaries like Paradise without People (2019), Dusty and Stones (2022), and Joy Dancer (2024). She was a fellow in the Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship and in the Sundance Co//ab Art of Editing Fellowship; she also participated in the DOC NYC x VC Storytelling Incubator. Her interest in documentary filmmaking extends from her desire to raise awareness about social and political issues in the world through film. We Never Left is her directorial feature debut.

ABOUT Like a Spiral

Dir. Lamia Chraibi • Canada • 2024 • French, English, and Arabic • 28 min
Poetic and contemplative, Like a Spiral presents interviews from five migrant, domestic workers in Beirut working under the kafala system. They speak to the city and express their belonging and unbelonging to a society in collapse, and their memories dance and become intertwined through the rhythm of oppression.

FILMMAKER BIO

Lamia Chraibi is a French-Moroccan filmmaker based in Montreal. Her films focus on themes of social justice, identity, family, and territory, which she examines through body language and social art. The human being is at the heart of her approach. Her studies in social science (Sorbonne, Paris) and in documentary (INIS, Montreal) have shaped her sensitive and committed vision of the world. Her art is nourished by her identity questions, her migratory journey, and her travels. With a poetic approach, her camera gives a voice to the forgotten from diverse backgrounds.

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.