Safar Film Festival
Safar Film Festival
Monday 4th July—Friday 8th July, 2022
Founded and run by the Arab British Centre since 2012, the Safar Film Festival is the only festival in the UK dedicated to cinema from the Arab world. Safar offers a unique space for audiences to explore and celebrate the diversity of Arab cinema past, present and future.
Safar aims to increase access to Arab cinema in the UK by working with screening partners across the country, as well as digital programmes.
This year the festival takes place in many cities ascross the country with Coventry hosting no less than five events at Warwick Artrs Centre.
Farha (2021) + Q&A
Monday 4th July 2022, 5:30pm
Inspired by true events, Farha tells the story of a young girl whose dreams change from seeking an education in the city to survival in Palestine, 1948. Darin J. Sallam’s unflinching debut feature revisits the violence of the Nakba - the forced expulsion of 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homeland - through the eyes of the titular teenager.
Premiering in the UK at SAFAR Film Festival. This film will be followed by a Q&A with director Darin J. Sallam.
Becoming (2020) + Q&A
**Tuesday 5th July 2022, 6pm **
5 stories, 5 Saudi directors: a deep look into the Kingdom’s ever-changing society, as well as Saudi identity, development, and at times, listlessness–quite simply, a deep look into life itself. Premiering in the UK at SAFAR Film Festival. This screening will be followed by a Q&A.
The Gravedigger's Wife (2021)
**Wednesday 6th July 2022, 6pm **
Guled and Nasra are a loving couple, living in the outskirts of Djibouti city with their teenage son, Mahad and facing difficult times. Nasra urgently needs an expensive surgery to treat a chronic kidney disease. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet: how can they find the money to save Nasra and keep the family together?
Finnish writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, born in Mogadishu 40 years ago, has directed several successful short films, such as The Night Thief in 2017. In addition, he has already made a notable career as a scriptwriter. The Gravedigger’s Wife is his first feature and it premiered in the competition of the Critics Week of Cannes in 2021.
Book Tickets for The Gravedigger's Wife
Feathers (2021)
Thursday 7th July 2022, 5:30pm
This is the film's UK Premiere at SAFAR Film Festival.
When a magic trick goes awry at a child’s birthday party, the authoritative father of a family gets turned into a chicken. The mother, whose mundane life was dedicated to her husband and children, is urged to come to the fore, moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back and secure their survival.
Omar El Zohairy is an award-winning filmmaker from Egypt. Feathers, his debut feature fiction, was the first Egyptian film to participate within the International Critics' Week at Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the 2021 Grand Prize.
Heliopolis (2021) + Q&A
Friday 8th July 2022, 5:30pm
Inspired by real events, this period drama traces the beginning of the tragic events of 8 May 1945 and the massacres of Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata in Algeria during French colonization. In the city of Guelma, which was once called Heliopolis in ancient times, the daily life of an Algerian family takes its usual course. But on 8 May, 1945, the day the end of World War II was announced, demonstrations by the Algerian people against the French colonial power and for the country’s independence took place, and were bloodily suppressed by the French army and French settler militias.
A rarely explored topic in cinema, the official theatrical release in Algeria took place in May 2021 and sold out in most cities of the country. This screening will be followed by a Q&A.
