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.
Omar has been living in London for a decade. He spends his days working in the City, and his nights ignoring phone calls from his family back in Lebanon. One evening, restless after another pleading voicemail from his mother, he reaches for his phone and invites over Marco, a Spanish student newly-arrived in London, who’s doing sex work to earn some extra cash. But when Marco arrives, Omar can’t shake the feeling that something’s not right about the young man. As their night together progresses truths are revealed, defenses are lowered, and Omar discovers the lengths that Marco has gone to reach London.
Director Bio:
Saleem Haddad's first novel, Guapa, was published in 2016. A political and personal coming-of-age story of a young gay man living through the Arab Spring, the novel received critical acclaim from the Guardian (“explosive... as compelling as it is insightful”), The New Yorker (“a vibrant, wrenching debut”), and others. Described as the "Arab Tennessee Williams," in 2017 Haddad was awarded a Stonewall Honour and won the Polari First Book Prize. He was also selected as one of the top 100 Global Thinkers of 2016 by Foreign Policy Magazine, and as one of ‘five young Arab writers to watch’ by The New York Times. Marco is his directorial debut.
- Year2019
- Runtime22 minutes
- LanguageArabic, English
- CountryUnited Kingdom, Lebanon
- DirectorSaleem Haddad
- ScreenwriterSaleem Haddad
- ProducerJack Casey
- CastZed Josef, Marwan Kaabour
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.
Omar has been living in London for a decade. He spends his days working in the City, and his nights ignoring phone calls from his family back in Lebanon. One evening, restless after another pleading voicemail from his mother, he reaches for his phone and invites over Marco, a Spanish student newly-arrived in London, who’s doing sex work to earn some extra cash. But when Marco arrives, Omar can’t shake the feeling that something’s not right about the young man. As their night together progresses truths are revealed, defenses are lowered, and Omar discovers the lengths that Marco has gone to reach London.
Director Bio:
Saleem Haddad's first novel, Guapa, was published in 2016. A political and personal coming-of-age story of a young gay man living through the Arab Spring, the novel received critical acclaim from the Guardian (“explosive... as compelling as it is insightful”), The New Yorker (“a vibrant, wrenching debut”), and others. Described as the "Arab Tennessee Williams," in 2017 Haddad was awarded a Stonewall Honour and won the Polari First Book Prize. He was also selected as one of the top 100 Global Thinkers of 2016 by Foreign Policy Magazine, and as one of ‘five young Arab writers to watch’ by The New York Times. Marco is his directorial debut.
- Year2019
- Runtime22 minutes
- LanguageArabic, English
- CountryUnited Kingdom, Lebanon
- DirectorSaleem Haddad
- ScreenwriterSaleem Haddad
- ProducerJack Casey
- CastZed Josef, Marwan Kaabour