Alice has precious few (but building) films from the Middle East and even fewer from the vast continent of Africa. Middle Eastern films are often highly politicised, bringing subjects to the attention of audiences that would otherwise know little about them. Film makers are often dealing with various forms of political and social oppression and even armed conflicts to bring their stories to light. Exotic scenery, allegorical storytelling and close-up exposure to cultural norms, so different from our own, bring a kind of immersion only rivalled by being there. To find a title from a specific country use the By Country link on the left. Pictured: A Time for Drunken Horses
1947, and Palestine is on the brink of becoming the independent state of Israel. Still occupied by the British, tensions run high between the occupyin... Read more
A wryly elegant, slice-of-life comedy in which an Egyptian Ceremonial Police Band, due to play at the opening of an Arab Cultural Centre in Israel, fi... Read more
Based on her autobiographical graphic novels, Marjane Satrapi and co-screenwriter Vincent Paronnaud directed this Oscar-nominated, black-and-white ani... Read more
A Beirut beauty salon serves as a microcosm of modern society in director Nadine Labaki's look at liberated conversation in a conflicted society, as f... Read more
Turkish/German director Fatih Akin ('Head-On') brings together a deeply humanistic amd multi-layered drama as he follows the stories of six people cau... Read more
Director Marc Forster's adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's bestseller about one man's search for redemption following a childhood betrayal in his native... Read more
Internationally acclaimed writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's sublime follow-up to his Cannes multi-award winner 'Distant'. Beautifully drawn and meti... Read more
This award-winning and critically acclaimed film follows the lives of three friends on the verge of adolescence in a remote Turkish mountain village.... Read more
Just on the cusp of puberty, Chen is also caught between two cultures. Equally attuned to his beautiful Russian mother's love of culture and the arts,... Read more
Four friends returning home from a skiing trip stumble upon a curiously large rock on the side of a mountain. What begins as a lighthearted project to... Read more