New AFS Series Focuses on Middle Eastern Films

There is so much I love about being a member of Austin Film Society, but high on my list is the Essential Cinema film series, which often features films that haven't been made widely available in the United States. The latest series, "Children of Abraham/Ibrahim 4: Films of the Middle East and Beyond" provides insights into Middle Eastern history and culture. From Chale Nafus, AFS Director of Programming:

"Our fourth annual series will continue looking at films from the Middle East and beyond -- an area rich in tumultuous history, wonderful art and literature, but often mired in war and misunderstanding among the three religions which all trace their roots back to Abraham/Ibrahim. This is our local attempt to bring human faces and individual stories to the statistics and overwhelming images seen on TV and computer screens daily throughout the world.

"Our four contemporary films and two classics will take us to Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, and Pakistan. We will see unrequited love in a train station, struggles over ownership of land, the troubles a father has just getting home to a birthday party, a son struggling with his father over education, the ethnic and religious divisions within an Israeli neighborhood, and the lengths to which a politician will go to avoid responsibility for his actions."

The series starts tonight and runs through February 16, and screenings for this month include:

Cairo Station
Tuesday, Jan. 12, 7 pm
The bustling Cairo train station is the setting for a dramatic love triangle involving Kenaoui, a handicapped newspaper vendor (played by the director himself Youssef Chahine), Hanouma, a voluptuous lemonade seller, and her fiancé Abou Serib, a muscular train porter involved in union organizing. This classic 1959 Egyptian film noir was banned in Egypt for twenty years after its controversial premiere.

The Land (Al-ard)
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 7 pm
Considered by many critics to be one of Chahine's finest films, in the classic The Land Chahine focuses his lens on the plight of the peasants in a small village exploited by a powerful local landowner, at a time that Britain and the corrupt Egyptian monarchy still run the country.

Laila's Birthday
Tuesday, Jan. 26, 7 pm
Written and directed by Rashid Masharawi, Laila's Birthday centers around a Palestinian taxi driver (and former judge) in Ramallah who wants to make his daughter’s 7th birthday a very special one, but first he must spend his day making money picking up passengers. Each person who gets in and out of his cab reveals a bit of their lives -- young lovers simply wanting a place to be together, a man recently freed from prison, a woman unable to decide whether to go to a hospital or cemetery first, and a man who leaves his cell phone in the cab and creates chaos for the cab driver. In the course of the day Masharawi shows a Palestinian city often in the news but never observed in such objective detail.

All screenings in the series are at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, and are free for AFS members, $6 for all others. For advance ticket purchase as well as the rest of the schedule including Son of A Lion (Pakistan), Ajami (Israel), and Three Monkeys (Turkey), check out the AFS website or the Slackerwood event calendar. Screenings often sell out, so consider purchasing tickets online well ahead of time.