{"id":397366,"date":"2025-10-17T15:41:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=397366"},"modified":"2025-10-17T15:41:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:41:29","slug":"arab-films-featured-at-sao-paulo-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/arab-films-featured-at-sao-paulo-film-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab films featured at S\u00e3o Paulo Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The 49th<\/sup> S\u00e3o Paulo Film Festival opened on Thursday (16) with 374 films from 80 countries, including Arab nations. Featuring premieres and re-screenings, the festival offers Brazilian audiences award-winning productions from festivals such as Venice, Berlin, and Locarno, as well as potential contenders for the 2026 Best International Feature Film Oscar. Among the Arab productions\u2014whether documentaries, fiction, or dramas\u2014various themes are explored, with Palestine taking center stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palestine 36 <\/em>(2025) by Annemarie Jacir depicts the occupation and resistance of the territory as early as the 1930s, while Yalla Parkour<\/em> (2024) by Areeb Zuaiter, follows two young people confronting life in the Gaza Strip amid parkour practices on destroyed or abandoned buildings. Who Is Still Alive<\/em> (2025) by Nicolas Wadimoff tells the stories of nine refugees who managed to escape the war, sharing their experiences before and during the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser won the Best Director Award in the Un Certain Regard section at this year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival for Once Upon a Time in Gaza<\/em>, which is also screening at the S\u00e3o Paulo festival. The film goes back to 2007, when two friends decide to sell drugs while delivering falafel but find themselves having to negotiate with a corrupt police officer. With Hasan in Gaza<\/em> (2025) by Kamal Aljafari revisits footage portraying life in the Gaza Strip in 2001 through a journey across the territory led by driver Hasan, whose whereabouts remain unknown due to the recent two years of conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the documentary Notes on an Exile<\/em> (2025), director Gustavo Castro, from Brazil\u2019s Paran\u00e1 state, portrays the Palestinian occupation through historical footage and recordings made in 2018 with a Palestinian Brazilian family in the West Bank. Following the outbreak of conflict in October 2023, the project took on new contours, addressing themes such as colonization and apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Khartoum<\/em> (2025), the capital of Sudan takes center stage. In this production, Sudanese filmmakers Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, and British filmmaker Phil Coex began following the lives of five city residents in 2022. When conflict broke out between government forces and militias, they had to continue production outside Khartoum. The result is a portrayal of life\u2014and reality\u2014in one of Africa\u2019s largest cities amid war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The President\u2019s Cake<\/em> (2025) by Hasan Hadi goes back in time to 1990, when Iraq\u2019s president decrees that every school in the country must bake a cake to celebrate his birthday. A nine-year-old girl is chosen by her classmates for the task and must overcome food shortages to find the necessary ingredients for the celebration. The film won the Cam\u00e9ra d\u2019Or for Best Debut Feature at Cannes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Dead Dog<\/em> (2025), Sarah Francis explores the temporary rekindling of a marriage between Aida and Walid after many years living away from their homeland, Lebanon. Love takes center stage in A Sad and Beautiful World<\/em> by Cyril Aris. The conflicts affecting Lebanon put to the test 30 years of history between Nino and Yasmina and the struggle to build a life amid so many hardships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Where the Wind Comes From<\/em> (2025) by Amel Guellaty two friends embark on a journey from Tunis, the Tunisian capital, to the island of Djerba to take part in an art competition\u2014and perhaps find a new life away from the outskirts of a big city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the contenders for an Academy Award nomination are A Sad and Beautiful World, Palestine 36, Once Upon a Time in Gaza, The President\u2019s Cake,<\/em> as well as Egyptian film Happy Birthday<\/em> (2025) by Sarah Goher. The story depicts class conflict when an eight-year-old girl working for a wealthy family decides to throw a birthday party for her best friend\u2014the employers\u2019 daughter. Yalla Parkour, The President\u2019s Cake,<\/em> and Where the Wind Comes From<\/em> also compete in the New Directors section. The best films by these directors are selected by the audience and later evaluated by a jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the retrospectives, the winner of the 1975 Cannes Film Festival\u2019s Palme d\u2019Or, Chronicle of the Years of Fire,<\/em> portrays the movements between 1939 and 1954 that led to Algeria\u2019s independence. The showcase also features other cinematic productions from Arab countries. The full program is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more<\/em>:
Arab art shines at S\u00e3o Paulo Biennial<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supplied\/Unifrance<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Productions from Sudan, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Algeria, among other Arab countries, are part of the 49th S\u00e3o Paulo Film Festival. Palestine, however, takes center stage among the Arab titles in the event\u2019s lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":397353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[2034,10044,9534,9535,10506,31497,6200,48585,9897,6089,10080],"class_list":{"0":"post-397366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-algeria","9":"tag-arab-countries-en","10":"tag-brazil-en","11":"tag-cinema-en","12":"tag-festival-en","13":"tag-gaza-en-2","14":"tag-khartoum","15":"tag-lebanon-2","16":"tag-palestine-en","17":"tag-project","18":"tag-sao-paulo-en"},"wps_subtitle":"Productions from Sudan, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Algeria, among other Arab countries, are part of the 49th S\u00e3o Paulo Film Festival. Palestine, however, takes center stage among the Arab titles in the event\u2019s lineup.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}