emirates7 - The 21st Arab World Film Festival will open in São Paulo on Wednesday with nine films, seven of which will be screened in Brazil for the first time, Brazil-Arab News Agency reported.
Running until 8th September, the festival will feature films exploring memory, territory, family, displacement and transformation across different Arab societies.
The festival will open with Calle Málaga (2025), directed by Maryam Touzani and starring Carmen Maura. The film follows a Spanish woman living in Tangier, Morocco, who struggles to remain in the city after her daughter decides to sell the apartment where she lives.
Festival curator Arthur Jafet said the selection seeks to portray Arab societies “in motion,” moving beyond simplified representations of the Arab world and broadening perspectives on the themes and storytelling of a new generation of filmmakers.
“In these films, the past does not simply appear as nostalgia, but as living material that cinema recovers, questions and reinvents,” he said.
Jafet also highlighted Cotton Queen (2025), by Suzannah Mirghani, which portrays economic and social changes following British colonial rule in Sudan, and Shahad Ameen’s Hijra (2025), which explores how three generations of women from the same family relate to tradition in Saudi Arabia.
The curator also drew attention to Where the Wind Comes From (2025), by Amel Guellaty, which uses humour to explore the fate of two young people travelling across Tunisia to take part in a competition.
Jafet said that the festival also aims to audiences that there is not just one “Arab world,” but a diversity of countries and peoples with very different realities, including Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq.
He noted that 21 years after its founding, the Arab World Film Festival remains true to its mission of allowing Brazilian audiences to learn about Arab societies “beyond simplistic images.”
“Over these 21 editions, the festival has also witnessed a major transformation in Arab cinema itself, with new generations of filmmakers, greater female representation, films from countries that had previously received little international exposure, and a growing diversity of languages and subjects,” he added.
Running until 8th September, the festival will feature films exploring memory, territory, family, displacement and transformation across different Arab societies.
The festival will open with Calle Málaga (2025), directed by Maryam Touzani and starring Carmen Maura. The film follows a Spanish woman living in Tangier, Morocco, who struggles to remain in the city after her daughter decides to sell the apartment where she lives.
Festival curator Arthur Jafet said the selection seeks to portray Arab societies “in motion,” moving beyond simplified representations of the Arab world and broadening perspectives on the themes and storytelling of a new generation of filmmakers.
“In these films, the past does not simply appear as nostalgia, but as living material that cinema recovers, questions and reinvents,” he said.
Jafet also highlighted Cotton Queen (2025), by Suzannah Mirghani, which portrays economic and social changes following British colonial rule in Sudan, and Shahad Ameen’s Hijra (2025), which explores how three generations of women from the same family relate to tradition in Saudi Arabia.
The curator also drew attention to Where the Wind Comes From (2025), by Amel Guellaty, which uses humour to explore the fate of two young people travelling across Tunisia to take part in a competition.
Jafet said that the festival also aims to audiences that there is not just one “Arab world,” but a diversity of countries and peoples with very different realities, including Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq.
He noted that 21 years after its founding, the Arab World Film Festival remains true to its mission of allowing Brazilian audiences to learn about Arab societies “beyond simplistic images.”
“Over these 21 editions, the festival has also witnessed a major transformation in Arab cinema itself, with new generations of filmmakers, greater female representation, films from countries that had previously received little international exposure, and a growing diversity of languages and subjects,” he added.
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