June's Arab Film Series celebrates Pride month with AFMI's award-winning Queer Lens program from the 23rd Arab Film Festival. This showcase of LGBTQ+ works stands proud in bridging the gap of representation per specific facets of the underrepresented queer Arab experience so often ignored by the mainstream. By virtue of this program we aim to celebrate the multi-dimensional formations of Arab queerness in lieu of stories that so urgently need to be told, especially in today’s polarized media climate that leaves issues of visibility lost in the haze, or, worse: cast in a one-size-fits-all "Western Queer Narrative" that ignores the many complexities and nuances faced by LGBTQ+ persons in the Arab World and beyond, including Arab Americans and Muslims.
From a music video about a first generation gay Muslim Arab-American man coming to grips with his conservative father, a night on the town with two millennials in Dearborn Michigan with a lesbian twist, and a gender-bending self-awakening as a young Lebanese man channels the secret memories of his belly dancing mother; to stories that reveal the vulnerability, sacrifices, and tribulations of gay Syrian refugee men forced into sex work to make ends meet in Europe – Queer Lens will inspire you to re-visit and re-contextualize what you thought you knew about Arab queerness, as if beholding the refracted prism of a lens flare to reveal truths that shine in ways you have not seen before.
Majed, a 20-year-old man, is grieving the loss of his recently deceased mother. One day, he gets the shock of his life when he learns that she used to be a belly dancer. Torn between his relationship with his now-silent father, and Hanine, the woman who will help him overcome his grief; he takes a trip down memory lane in an attempt to discover the mysterious past of his mother.
Director Bio:
Born in Beirut, Georges Hazim has just obtained his Master’s degree in directing from the Lebanese University. Through his short films, often controversial in a quasi-conservative society, he gives a voice to the Queer community. He clings to the power of cinema and sees it as the ultimate weapon needed to progress in order to reach the freedom to exist without fear.
- Year2018
- Runtime20 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorGeorges Hazim
- ScreenwriterGeorges Hazim
- ProducerJoyce Nakhoul
- CastCarole Abboud, Ziad Seaibe, Georges Hazim, Georges Younes
June's Arab Film Series celebrates Pride month with AFMI's award-winning Queer Lens program from the 23rd Arab Film Festival. This showcase of LGBTQ+ works stands proud in bridging the gap of representation per specific facets of the underrepresented queer Arab experience so often ignored by the mainstream. By virtue of this program we aim to celebrate the multi-dimensional formations of Arab queerness in lieu of stories that so urgently need to be told, especially in today’s polarized media climate that leaves issues of visibility lost in the haze, or, worse: cast in a one-size-fits-all "Western Queer Narrative" that ignores the many complexities and nuances faced by LGBTQ+ persons in the Arab World and beyond, including Arab Americans and Muslims.
From a music video about a first generation gay Muslim Arab-American man coming to grips with his conservative father, a night on the town with two millennials in Dearborn Michigan with a lesbian twist, and a gender-bending self-awakening as a young Lebanese man channels the secret memories of his belly dancing mother; to stories that reveal the vulnerability, sacrifices, and tribulations of gay Syrian refugee men forced into sex work to make ends meet in Europe – Queer Lens will inspire you to re-visit and re-contextualize what you thought you knew about Arab queerness, as if beholding the refracted prism of a lens flare to reveal truths that shine in ways you have not seen before.
Majed, a 20-year-old man, is grieving the loss of his recently deceased mother. One day, he gets the shock of his life when he learns that she used to be a belly dancer. Torn between his relationship with his now-silent father, and Hanine, the woman who will help him overcome his grief; he takes a trip down memory lane in an attempt to discover the mysterious past of his mother.
Director Bio:
Born in Beirut, Georges Hazim has just obtained his Master’s degree in directing from the Lebanese University. Through his short films, often controversial in a quasi-conservative society, he gives a voice to the Queer community. He clings to the power of cinema and sees it as the ultimate weapon needed to progress in order to reach the freedom to exist without fear.
- Year2018
- Runtime20 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorGeorges Hazim
- ScreenwriterGeorges Hazim
- ProducerJoyce Nakhoul
- CastCarole Abboud, Ziad Seaibe, Georges Hazim, Georges Younes