BFI London Film Festival 2022: MENA films to look out for

The BFI London Film Festival (LFF) is back for its 66th year and promises an impressive line-up of films, which will be showcased in cinemas and online across the UK, over the next twelve days.

This year at the BFI London Film Festival there will be a myriad of features films, series’ and immersive artworks from over 63 countries, with 41% of the programme made by female and non-binary creators and 34% by ethnically diverse directors/creators.

And, as well as showcasing highly anticipated mainstream films, such as Matilda and Empire of Light, the festival promises a varied and rich selection of films from the Middle East and North Africa region.

"This year at the BFI London Film Festival there will be a myriad of features films, series’ and immersive artworks from over 63 countries, with 41% of the programme made by female and non-binary creators and 34% by ethnically diverse directors/creators"

Despite heavy scrutiny around the world Iranian filmmakers continue to defy forces of oppression with four films listed at this year’s LFF.  In No Bears, Jafar Panahi plays a filmmaker, whose latest production mirrors his own reality.

In the film, Panahi, who currently faces six years imprisonment, is a filmmaker trying to direct a cast and crew in Turkey, forced to remain in an Iranian village close to the border.

If you’re interested in something a little more abstract, Takbir, an Afghan short film, under the Experimentia category, takes a dramatically different approach across documentary and fiction.

Filmed the night after the Taliban’s re-taking of Kabul, Takbir evokes the lasting material and cultural legacies of Afghanistan’s many foreign occupations.

For a more light-hearted fare watch, Maryam Touzani’s Moroccan drama, The Blue Caftan, has all the ingredients of a family drama: tenderness, desire and emotional intrigue.  

Set in the Moroccan town Salé, Mina runs a small shop selling traditional caftans created by her husband, master tailor Halim. Complications arise when Halim, secretly gay, finds himself attracted to the shop’s new apprentice Youssef. The Blue Caftan is an emotionally complex, richly empathetic depiction of a partnership sustained through storms and challenges.

Sadaf Foroughi’s second feature, Summer with Hope, is also an intimate family drama, which cements her position as an exciting voice in contemporary Iranian cinema.

Talented teen swimmer Omid travels with his mother and uncle from their home in Tehran to the Caspian Sea, where he intends to compete in the national team qualifiers. But a bureaucratic mishap threatens Omid’s participation.

Frustrations turn to anger, revealing bitter resentments that lie beyond the 17-year-old’s sporting ambitions.

An arresting family drama, Summer with Hope is an oblique and disarming portrait of contemporary Iran’s socio-political landscape.

Under the Fig Trees is another mellow drama, set in a picturesque Tunisian orchard, which is a beautiful reminder of the importance of friendship and savouring the joys of the everyday.

Within the coveted Best Film Award category, which recognises inspiring, inventive, and distinctive filmmaking, are two MENA films.

In Nezouh, Soudade Kaadan, turns to her Syrian roots for a wry, poignant look at a family forced from their home in Damascus.

When a missile destroys her family’s apartment, teenager Zeina and her mother believe her father Mutaz will finally concede that they need to leave the devastated Syrian capital.

But Mutaz refuses to become a refugee, resolutely patching up the family’s home with bedsheets. With the interior becoming the exterior, Zeina and her mother are more exposed to the outside world than ever before.

The invitation of a rope through a hole in her blasted ceiling leads to an encounter with the neighbour’s son Amer, to stars, imaginary fishing and movies.

Displaced Syrian filmmaker Kaadan observed that it has taken years to bring lightness to devastating memories (she quotes Twain’s ‘humour is tragedy plus time’) and here she creates a film of delicate, melancholic charm. With Zeina’s new freedoms, there is also loss: of a life, a home and a homeland.

Meanwhile, in The Damned Don’t Cry, Fyzal Boulifa showcases a striking film about the perils of falling foul of community and social expectations.

Selim and his mother Fatima-Zahra live in close quarters, with so little money that a single moment of bad fortune is a crisis of survival.

Man-child Selim has grown up without a father, leaving him and his mother socially marginalised; he’s bound to his mother, but also resents her.

When a trip to her family village reveals some troubling secrets, a rift opens that will see them try to establish their independence from each other, but tests their fragile love. Moroccan-British filmmaker Boulifa offers a glimpse of what is hidden within private spaces – guarded secrets, sexuality, shame, hope and a desire for more than cultural expectations allow. 

For something a little more fast-paced check out Autobiography – a riveting feature debut from Makbul Mubarak that details the journey of a young man as he begins to taste power for the first time.

It focuses on the relationship between Purna, a cold-blooded former military man running for office in a local election, and his personal assistant Rakib, who is looking for some direction in life.

Purna begins to treat Rakib as his own son, and, as their relationship deepens, Rakib begins to understand Purna’s insatiable appetite for power, hatching a plan to stop him. A chilling, simmering slow-burner, Autobiography builds to an unforgettable final scene, concluding with a moment of brutal intensity.

Those looking for suspense should watch Subtraction - Mani Haghighi’s bizarre and highly original film which dabbles in magic realism.

When driving instructor Farzaneh spots her husband on the streets of Tehran, even though he is meant to be out of town on a business trip, she naturally suspects the worst. Following him, Farzaneh’s fears are seemingly confirmed when she sees him visiting another woman. With that woman’s husband also suspecting something is awry, the situation erupts into violence. Yet, all is not quite what it seems.

An impressively scripted drama, balancing suspense and humour, and confounding genre expectations, Subtraction delivers an acute commentary on issues of class and family dynamics in contemporary Iran.

Equally suspenseful is The Boy From Heaven by Tarek Saleh.

It tells the story of Adam, a fisherman’s son who is offered a place at a prestigious Islamic school in Cairo and finds himself drawn into a religious and political power struggle.

Adam finds himself caught between a rock and hard place in a film that shows how the politicisation of religion – and vice versa – is the great poison of our times

And, for the braver among us, Ashkal, a supernatural thriller set in Tunisia, is sure to keep you gripped.

In the eerie desolation of the half-built Gardens of Carthage, the burned body of a caretaker is found amongst the skeletal remains of forgotten buildings.

The local police conclude death by self-immolation, but the discovery of a second victim a few days later leads detectives Batal and Fatma to suspect foul play.

Skilfully exploiting the uncanny quiet of this architectural ghost town (breathtakingly shot by Hazem Berrabah), director Youssef Chebbi’s enigmatic fusion of melancholy neo-noir and the fantastical (think True Detective by way of The X-Files) is a politically tinged enigma, trading in bold provocations, rather than easy answers.

Sami Rahman is a freelance lifestyle writer based in London. 

Follow her on Twitter: @bysamirahman