TMR World Picks are selected by our editors. We welcome your suggestions: editors@themarkaz.org
TMR
Festival Ciné-Palestine 2024
May 31 —June 16, Marseille & Paris —more info
The Festival Ciné-Palestine (FCP) is an annual film festival held in various locations in the Paris metropolitan region since 2015. It aims to highlight the quality and diversity of Palestinian cinema by showcasing works by Palestinian artists or those that evoke Palestine, and provides a platform for Palestinian artists to engage in discussions and debates with audiences. For its 10th edition, the FCP offers a traveling program between Paris, Île-de-France, and Marseille.
In response to current events, the festival is opening its 10th edition with a tribute to Gaza. The aim of the tribute is to denounce the persistent violence that has hit the Gaza Strip since the blockade began in 2007, accentuated by the unprecedented genocide committed against its population since October 2023.
The focus is titled Palestine in the Eye and pays tribute to Hani Jawharieh, expressing the desire to highlight the FCP’s archives during its 10th edition. Films include The Roller, the Life, the Fight by Elettra Bisogno and Hazem Alqaddi, Scènes d’occupation à Gaza by Mustafa Abu Ali, Vibrations from Gaza by Rehab Nazzal, Offing by Oraib Toukan, The Teacher by Farah Nabulsi, Aida Returns by Carol Mansour, To A Land Unknown by Mahdi Fleifel, Journey into Gaza by Pietro Usberti, as well as a selection of unreleased short films and many others.
Maghreb Des Livres 2024
June 1—June 2, Hotel de Ville de Paris —more info
The 30th edition of the Maghreb des Livres (Maghreb of Books) will be held in the salons of the Paris Hôtel de Ville (city hall), and will focus on Moroccan literature. The event showcases thousands of books including novels, essays, and comics published in France or the Maghreb.
Approximately a hundred authors will be available for book signings. Attendees can participate in literary cafés and some 30 author interviews will be conducted by literary journalists. The debates are organized on diverse topics related to France, the Maghreb, the Mediterranean, in the areas of knowledge, culture, and coexistence.
Of special interest is anthropologist Aomar Boum’s latest book, The Last Rekkas, or Le dernier Rekkas, chroniques d’un messager-piéton dans le Sud du Maroc, with Boum and his artist daughter, Majdouline Boum-Mendoza, and Driss El Yazami, on Sun., June 2, 11:30-12:30 in the Salles des Fêtes.
The Teacher by Farah Nabulsi, New York Premiere
June 5, Brooklyn Film Festival, Windmill Film Studios —more info
The Teacher directed by Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA award-winning Palestinian British filmmaker, Farah Nabulsi, is about a Palestinian school teacher who struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with the chance of a new romantic relationship with a British volunteer worker and his emotional support for one of his students. The film is written by Farah Nabulsi, in co-operation with Sawsan Asfari, and Ossama Bawardi.
Staged reading: The drama of displacement: the journey of a Syrian refugee through theatre
June 13, London School of Economics, London —more info
A staged reading of scenes from a new play by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler, who have collaborated to dramatize the politics and human effects of forced migration. The play focuses on the interaction between a Syrian refugee and a state official, exploring how theatre can address life experiences during political upheaval, delving into the lives of two women, a Syrian refugee and a Home Office officer, both grappling with personal tragedies and the trials of their lives in the backdrop of the UK.
Following the reading, the speakers will lead a discussion on the performance. This event is part of the LSE Festival: Power and Politics running from June 10 to June 15, 2024 showcasing a series of events exploring how power and politics shape our world.
Arab Design Now Exhibition
Ongoing — August 5, Msheireb, Doha —more info
Arab Design Now presents a survey of local and regional design talent across disciplines, from architectural and material innovations to contemporary crafts, furniture, fashion, graphic, and object design. It is curated by Rana Beiruti, a design curator based in Amman, Jordan, previously the co-founder and director of Amman Design Week.
Working across themes of material and visual culture and expression, environmental and innovative use of materials, and considerations of technique, detail, pattern, and aesthetic, the exhibition highlights design excellence from across the region of the Levant, the Gulf, and North Africa. Looking beyond a globalized or imported design language, the exhibition is a reflection on what it means to create in the MENA region today.
Printemps des Comédiens 2024
Ongoing —June 21, Montpellier, France —more info
In the heart of Occitanie, the Printemps des Comédiens festival welcomes some of the biggest European productions. Every year, it hosts renowned masters of international stages, as well as up-and-coming artists and leading European theatre schools. This has positioned the festival as one of the most important hubs for creation, production and public and artist training in Montpellier. Directed by Jean Varela since 2011, the festival presents around 45 shows and 130 performances in the fields of theatre and live performances attracting, nearly 40,000 spectators.
Highlights include a performance of the latest adaptation of acclaimed theatre artist Wajdi Mouawad’s Wedding day at the Cromagnons, created this spring in Beirut and translated into Lebanese Arabic. French subtitles will accompany the performance. In 1991, the Lebanese civil war was coming to an end and Wajdi Mouawad, who was 23 years old at the time, wrote the initial lines of this text. It served as the foundation for what would become a powerful theatrical universe over the next thirty years. The text already contained elements such as the resilient smiles amidst bombings, a longing for a lost world, and the pain of exile.
An Assembly of Women Today is a performance not to be missed. Roxane Borgna was invited by the French Institute of Jerusalem to collaborate with the Palestinian National Theater to create this show. She has brought together the talents of Jean-Claude Fall and Laurent Rojol for this human and artistic adventure. In the play, the revisiting Aristophanes’ Assembly of Women aims to initiate a thought-provoking conversation between ancient Greek comedy and the reality of Palestinian women today. Performers include Iman Aoun, Fatima Abu Alul, Shaden Saleem, Ameena Adileh, Nidal Jubeh, Mays Assi, Firas Farrah, and Nicola Zreineh.
“What Palestine brings to the world” Exhibition in Tunis
Ongoing — June 28, Tunis, Tunisia — more info
With the support of the Palestinian Embassy in Tunisia, this exhibition organized by the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, along with the programming prepared in collaboration with the French Institute of Tunisia provides a platform for Palestinian artists to showcase their work and contribute to the diversity of the cultural landscape. As Jack Lang, president of the Arab World Institute, writes: “Far from a chronicle of victimhood, the exhibition shows the world in Palestine and Palestine to the world.”
The curators include Elias Sanbar, Marion Slitine, Éric Delpont and Marie Chominot.
For the full program, see here.
