AFLAMUNA Connection :: edition 10 selected projects
In the face of this ongoing devastation caused by the occupation, insisting on erasing us, people, stone, history, and story, we insist on launching the 10th edition of AFLAMUNA Connection, reaffirming our commitment to filmmakers whose projects continue to emerge amid war, dispossession, and erasure. To sustain these works and the spaces that nurture them is to affirm that stories and images from the Arab world will continue to circulate, challenging reductive narratives and asserting the diversity and complexity of a region too often misrepresented.
This year’s selection reflects a range of cinematic approaches grounded in the realities of the region and the persistence of its filmmakers. Eighteen projects have been selected from Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Somalia, Morocco, and Syria: 13 feature films in development, including 8 fiction and 5 documentary projects, alongside 5 feature documentary works in progress.
Films in Development
A Tale of a Feather and a Fish
Egypt
Directed by Ahmed El-Hawarey
Produced by Hala Lotfy, Hassala Films
Amid a genetic disease: three broken family members seek salvation, guided towardhealing by the very loved ones they must care for.
A Touch of Paradise
Tunisia
Directed by Houcem Slouli
Produced by Sarra Ben Hassen, Instinct Bleu
In a Tunisian city ravaged by toxic wastes, a young couple’s first pregnancy turns into a quiet nightmare after a devastating incident. As irreversible mutations turn their lives upside down.
A Young Man In Trouble
Egypt
Directed by Ahmed Sobhy
Produced by Perihan Mousa, Hand Print Films
Ali, a young man in his twenties, tries to secure his imprisoned father's release, only to find himself confronting deep family tensions and hidden truths. What begins as a mission becomes a painful reckoning with his past and a profound path to self-discovery.
Accept my Plea for Burial
Somalia, Djibouti
Directed by Mohammed Sheikh
Produced by Kadir Harbi, Aleel Films
In a remote Somali pastoral village, two twelve-year-old boys, Waasuge and Warmooge, spend their days herding goats and playing. Their rivalry turns tragic when Warmooge dies after falling into a dry riverbed during a game. With no clear witness and conflicting testimonies, suspicion grows. As grief turns to accusation, Warmooge’s mother refuses burial without justice, and the village fractures under the weight of uncertainty and pressure to resolve the truth.
Animals
Egypt, France
Directed by Morad Mostafa
Produced by Sawsan Yusuf, Bonanza films
Malik, a teenage boy, goes on the run with a strange, elusive girl (Noura), haunted by a crime involving Rasheed, his twin brother. As they travel across the cities of Egypt, his human instincts begin to unravel, giving way to something feral.
Disappeared (Working Title)
Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, France
Directed by Anas Zawahri
Produced by Ahmad Alhaj, Wind cinema
Five Syrian women confront the forced disappearance of their sons and husbands. Through their daily lives and an ongoing search for truth, they resist political erasure, preserve memory, and reclaim meaning within their cities and the marginalized Syrian countryside.
I Have Other Friends
Egypt
Directed by Yomna Khattab
Produced by Muhammad Taymour, Chaos Films
Yomna, the director, on the verge of turning forty, takes us on a personal, intimate journey as she portrays her closest female friends. Through long-delayed, difficult conversations, she wonders: Who are my friends when I hit forties?
Karama
Morocco
Directed by Fatym Layachi
Produced by Younes Lazrak, Jawjab
Between universities, the streets, football stands, and rap studios, five young Moroccans chart a new path forward as they search for justice and dignity. Together they form a portrait of a generation that refuses to give in to despair and exile.
Songs from the City of the Dead
Egypt, Sudan, Sweden, Norway
Directed by Abdelwahab Shawky
Produced by Mark Lotfy, Fig Leaf
After the death of his sheikh, Younis leaves his sheltered spiritual world to follow his childhood singer into the hidden depths of Cairo and Upper Egypt. There, he becomes immersed in communities living at the margins,, living for the first time without guardianship, trying to find a voice of his own.
The Hearse to the Final House of Happiness
Palestine
Directed by Wisam Al Jafari
Produced by Hanna Attallah, Route243
When a Palestinian man in his fifties is granted a brief leave to attend a family wedding, the event descends into chaotic absurdity as his political obsession, a restless family, and street protests clash.
The Space I Carry
Lebanon, France
Directed by Josef Khallouf, Elise Pouchelet (Rita Zahi)
Produced by Josef Khallouf, The FilmMonk
Born in Lebanon in 1975, at the beginning of the Civil War, Elise was abandoned, then adopted and taken to France. Fifty years later, she traces the two lineages that run through her, navigating fragments and silences that have quietly shaped her. In the solitude of the mountains, among wild beings, she begins to inhabit the space she carries within her.
To Whom It Concerns
Lebanon
Directed by Elie Kamal
Produced by Jana Wehbe, The Attic
Set within the confines of a crumbling hotel, one fateful night binds together the lives of its diverse inhabitants, each grappling with their own turmoil against the backdrop of an unsettling city.
Twelve Fig Leaves
Lebanon
Directed by Joëlle Abou Chabké
Produced by Lara Abou Saïfan, Placeless Films
When filmmaker-turned-farmer Joëlle discovers the Bawāhīr, an ancestral Lebanese method of weather prediction, she begins a year-long journey to test its accuracy while building a permaculture project with her husband in his native Bekaa village. As climate uncertainty and political instability grow, their journey becomes a search for resilience, ancestral knowledge, and ways to survive.
Works in Progress
A City Without Doors - When Life Stirs
Qatar, Syria
Directed by Eyad Aljaroud
Produced by Abdulrahman Alkilany, Fisheye Films
Saraqib is a city without doors, suspended in emptiness and stripped of its landmarks. Among its ruins, stories emerge of returnees driven by a quiet urge to survive. As silence turns into the rhythm of reconstruction, rebuilding becomes more than restoring walls; it becomes a search for meaning. Between a heavy past and a fragile present, the city slowly begins to breathe again.
Trip to my body
Tunisia, Brasil
Directed by Bassem Ben Brahim
Produced by Nada Mezni Hfaiedh, Leyth Production
Jad, a 27-year-old trans man, navigates exile, identity, and belonging. After leaving Tunisia for safety, he finds chosen family and recognition in Brazil. Through childhood memories, gender struggles, and preparation for a liberating mastectomy, the film explores the body as a site of transformation, courage, and self-discovery, shaped by the power of community.
Confessions in Arabic
Lebanon, Cyprus
Directed by Maria Ghafary
Produced by Hiba Louis & Muriel Aboulrousss, Quo Films
A poetic, experimental documentary that portrays seven Arab women whose stories unfold between memory and reality. Through intimate confessions shaped around a Zoom call between a mother and daughter, filmmaker Maria Ghafary opens her own wounds alongside six generations of women, reclaiming confession as tenderness, resistance, and the right to exist, feel, and be free.
+477 night
Palestine
Directed by Aisha Adly
A documentary rooted in the director’s personal experience of displacement, tracing lives since October 13, 2023, through 2.5 years of the ongoing Israeli occupation genocidal war on Gaza. The film documents women’s stories inside their tents and their specific needs, while portraying the daily lives of forcibly displaced communities across generations, where moments of joy and grief continue to coexist.
Wilderness of Dreams
Egypt, Belgium, France
Directed by Mona Lotfy
Produced by Hala Lotfy, Hassala Films
A documentary rooted in the director’s personal experience of displacement, tracing lives since October 13, 2023, through 2.5 years of the ongoing Israeli occupation genocidal war on Gaza. The film documents women’s stories inside their tents and their specific needs, while portraying the daily lives of forcibly displaced communities across generations, where moments of joy and grief continue to coexist.