Films to look out for at Cannes festival 2017

From the struggle of a Tunisian woman seeking justice against her police abusers, to a tale of a desire for vengeance by migrants in Germany, to the story of a young refugee who discovers powers of levitation after being shot on a border fence, MENA-related films have been nominated across categories at the prestigious film festival to be held between 17 and 28 May.

The New Arab gives you a snapshot of films to look out for as the festival unfolds.

In the Fade

Acclaimed German-Turkish director Fatih Akin, having won Germany's prestigious Golden Bear award for Head On in 2004 and the Cannes Screenplay award in 2007, aims for this years Palme d'Or with In the Fade.

In the Fade stars Diane Kruger [IMDb]

Starring Diane Kruger of Troy fame, Akin's In the Fade delves deep into the dark currents swirling between Germany's Turkish community and the Neo-Nazis with a woman's desire for vengeance after an unexplained explosion rips her family away from her.

Jupiter's Moon

Also competing for the highest ranking Palme d'Or award is Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's Jupiter's Moon.

Jupiter's Moon is directed by Kornel Mundruczo [IMDb]

As the issue of the European migrant crisis continues to flood the media, Mundruczo looks at the life of a young immigrant shot suddenly at a border crossing.

Injury and shock are quickly replaced by amazement as the immigrant discovers he now has the power to levitate. But when a doctor smuggles him out of the refugee camp, the power and the migrant himself are ripe for exploitation.

Beauty and the Dogs

The horror of brazen abuse by Tunisian police and the question of gender roles is subject of Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania's Beauty and the Dogs which is competing in the Un Certain Regard section, reserved for innovative and novel works.

Ben Hania whose Zaineb Hates the Snow traced the tale of a girl uprooted from Tunis and forced to live in Canada, was herself born in Sidi Bouzid, the town where in 2010 Mohammad Bouaziz set himself alight after a police assault.

In Beauty and the Dogs, originally titled in Arabic Ala Kaf Ifrit, she tells the turmoil and resolve of Myriam, a woman subjected to abuse by police-officers after a night out, but whose recourse to justice is only through the police force itself. 

Until the Birds Return

Collisions between the past and the present, reason and emotion, are subject of Algerian director Karim Moussaoui's Until the Birds Return, also chosen to compete in the Un Certain Regard category.

Moussoui's offering interweaves the tale of three Algerians living in the new millennium: a wealthy businessman faced with a troubling choice, a bride-to-be seeking to leave the past behind, and an aspirational doctor hoping also to be a groom-to-be, all navigating the shades between tradition and modernity in present-day Algeria.

A Man of Integrity

Iranian cinema has its customary film-award nod with A Man of Integrity by Mohammad Rasoulof and produced by UAE-based Kaveh Farnam.

Also nominated for the Un Certain Regard category, A Man of Integrity examines the dangers of centralised power through the eyes of a young-man living a quiet life on a goldfish farm but who sees a powerful company with links to the upper-echelons of government amass power across the region.