Tripoli, 22 June 2013:
Tonight, the Arete Cinema Club will . . .[restrict]be showing films in Tripoli, Zawia and Benghazi.
At Tripoli’s Art House, a comedy called Egyptian Maidens will be shown at 6 pm.
Directed by Mohammed Amin, Egyptian Maidens details the quest of two well-educated and professionally-successful single women in their early thirties to get married.
Comedy underpins some hard truths as the film unfolds and the protagonists begin to realise that their chances of finding fulfilment through love are intertwined with their nation’s difficulties.
In the style of much recent Egyptian cinema, Egyptian Maidens combines various genres, including melodrama and action, with slapstick comedy. With excellent lead performances and a surprising ending, Amin succeeds in giving weight to modern-day issues.
Egyptian Maidens is in Arabic.
In Zawia, the Palestinian tale of forbidden love Rana’s Wedding will be shown at 6 pm at the Culture House.
Starring Clara Khoury, Rana’s Wedding tells the story of a 17 year-old Palestinian girl who wants to choose who she will marry. However, Rana wakes up one morning to an ultimatum from her father: she must either choose a husband from a preselected list of men, or leave Palestine for Egypt with her father by 4 pm that afternoon.
With ten hours to find her secret boyfriend in Jerusalem, Rana sneaks out of her father’s house at daybreak to find her forbidden love Khalil.
Rana’s Wedding is in Arabic.
In Benghazi, Arete will be showing Night– an award-winning film about Syria’s struggle to become a modern nation and shape its own identity – at the Feel Cinema (Qarya Siyahiya) at 7 pm.
Night is set in the late 1930s and 40s. From the perspective of a troubled family, it portrays Syria’s efforts to forge a national identity against a backdrop of European influences.
Narrated by an older self, events are seen through the eyes of a young boy. Touching on aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the film explores national identity as well as childhood issues, as the narrator tries to come to terms with his unstable father.
Mohammed Malas’ autobiographical film won several coveted film awards in 1992, and was the first Syrian film to appear in the New York Film Festival.
Night is in Arabic.
Cinemas and Theatres were closed for many years under the old regime and the Arete Cinema Club aims to reintroduce film to Libyan communities. [/restrict]
