From a small Nile Delta village where as a girl she sang disguised as a boy, to her final concert as a woman battling illness — El Sett traces seven decades in the life of Umm Kulthum (1904–1975), the Egyptian singer who became the Voice of the Arab World.

Starring Mona Zaki in a career-defining performance, the film follows her journey from provincial obscurity to Paris, Cairo concert halls, and global legend — a woman whose voice Bob Dylan, Maria Callas, and Robert Plant all claimed as an influence.

Source: Press kit

Date: (insert screening date)

RT: 155 mins.

Director: MARWAN HAMED

In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, teenage Nafisa is raised on heroic tales of resistance against British colonizers, passed down by her grandmother Al-Sit, the village matriarch. When a young businessman arrives with a new development plan and genetically engineered cotton, Nafisa becomes the center of a power struggle over the village's future. Awakening to her own strength, she sets out to save the cotton fields — and herself.

Awards/Festivals: World Premiere, Venice International Film Critics' Week 2025 · Golden Alexander (top prize), Thessaloniki International Film Festival · Prix ArteKino International (development award, Cannes 2022)

RT: 93 mins.

Director: SUZANNAH MIRGHANI

María Ángeles is a 79-year-old Spanish woman who has lived her entire life in Tangier. She has her routines, her neighborhood, her friends — and no intention of going anywhere.

When her daughter arrives from Madrid to sell the apartment, determined to uproot her, María Ángeles fights back with everything she has. And in the process, unexpectedly rediscovers love and sensuality.

Source: Press kit

Awards:

• 82nd Venice Film Festival: Audience Award, Spotlight section

• Toronto International Film Festival 2025: Official Selection

• Morocco's official entry for the 98th Academy Awards, Best International Feature Film

RT: 116 mins.

Director: MARYAM TOUZANI

Iraq, 1990s. Nine-year-old Lamia has been chosen by her school to bake a cake for the President's birthday. In a country ground down by sanctions and fear, even eggs, flour, and sugar are nearly impossible to find. Accompanied by her grandmother, her loyal friend Saeed, and her pet rooster Hindi, Lamia sets off on a determined journey through the city to track down the ingredients — navigating vendors, checkpoints, and the daily contradictions of life under Saddam.

Source: Press kit

Awards:

• Cannes Film Festival 2025: Caméra d'Or (best debut feature); Quinzaine des Cinéastes Audience Award

• Iraq's official entry for the 98th Academy Awards, Best International Feature Film

Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

RT: 105 mins.

Director: HASAN HADI

A love letter to Beirut — playful, personal, and built entirely from archival footage. Drawing on 70 years of Lebanese film, television, home videos, and photography, Do You Love Me reconstructs a fragmented history in a country without a national archive. Through the eyes of citizens, filmmakers, and artists, it explores the Lebanese collective psyche: its joy and intimacy, its destruction and loss, its enduring creative spirit.

Source: Press kit

Awards:

• Hamburg Film Festival 2025: Political Film Award of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

• Doclisboa 2025: Honorable Mention — "a poetic film in a form we have never seen before"

• Cinemed 2025: Special Mention

• DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival 2026: Best Film in International Competition

Festival circuit: Venice (Giornate degli Autori, world premiere) · IDFA · SXSW · CPH:DOX · Marrakech · Cairo · Göteborg · New Directors/New Films

RT: 75 mins.

Director: LANA DAHER

Hayat is a superstitious artist convinced she will die the night she turns 30 — just as her mother and grandmother did before her. Youssef is an introverted heart surgeon with bradycardia, a condition that slows his heartbeat to a dangerous crawl.

The only thing that raises his pulse is holding a scalpel. He has the urge to take a life. Hayat wants to die on her own terms. Fate brings them together — and then love gets in the way.

Source: Press kit

RT: 118 mins.

Director: ANAS BA-TAHAF

Toha is an eight-year-old child maid working for a wealthy Cairo family.

When her best friend Nelly — the employer's daughter — is about to have a birthday party, Toha goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure it happens, in exchange for a candle to make a wish of her own.

Caught between two irreconcilable worlds, she slowly begins to understand the class divide that will define her life.

Source: Press kit

Awards:

• Tribeca Film Festival 2025: Best International Narrative Feature; Best International Script; Nora Ephron Award (distinguished female filmmaker)

• El Gouna Film Festival 2025: Cinema for Humanity Audience Award

• Heartland International Film Festival 2025: Grand Prize Winner

• São Paulo International Film Festival (49ª Mostra) 2025: Best Performance

• Madrid Films by Women 2025: Best International Film

• Palm Springs International Film Festival 2026: Best International First Feature

• Variety: listed Sarah Goher in "Top 10 Directors to Watch in 2026" (December 2025)

RT: 91 minutes

Director: SARAH GOHER

Egypt, summer 1967. As war looms, Ahmed — a young man from a humble Cairo family — receives a letter from Austria. Liz has replied to his search for a pen pal. From that moment, their long-distance friendship becomes the thread that pulls Ahmed toward an unlikely dream: becoming a concert pianist. Together they live through war, family upheaval, and the tectonic shifts that rocked Egypt from Nasser to the 1980s. The Stories is a chronicle of ordinary people navigating history they never asked for.

Source: Press kit

RT: 101 mins.

Director: ABU BAKR SHAWKY

Bouchra is a 35-year-old Moroccan filmmaker living in New York, paralyzed by the blank page. A phone call with her mother in Casablanca shakes loose a flood of memories — and a creative breakthrough. What follows is a journey through family bonds, daughterhood, and the thrill of new love, told entirely through 3D-animated anthropomorphic animals against live-action backgrounds.

Source: Press kit

RT: 82 mins.

Directors: ORIAN BARKI & MERIEM BENNANI

Saudi Arabia, 2001. Twelve-year-old Janna is traveling with her strict grandmother Sitti and rebellious older sister Sarah from the south of the country to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage. When Sarah suddenly vanishes without a trace, Janna and Sitti are forced to continue northward across the Kingdom in a desperate search — crossing ancient pilgrimage routes, meeting strangers, and discovering far more than they bargained for.

Source: Press kit

Awards:

• 82nd Venice Film Festival: Official Selection, Venezia Spotlight; Best Asian Film Award

• Carthage Film Festival (JCC): Best Cinematography Award; Best Actor Award

• Red Sea International Film Festival: Jury Award; Audience Award — Best Saudi Film

• 98th Academy Awards: Saudi Arabia's official entry for Best International Feature Film

RT: 105 mins.

Director: SHAHAD AMEEN

January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A six-year-old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her. Her name was Hind Rajab.

The voices on the phone are real.

Source: Palestine Red Crescent Society

Awards:

• 82nd Venice Film Festival: Grand Jury Prize; nominated for Golden Lion

• 98th Academy Awards:Tunisian entry for Best International Feature Film

• 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival: Perlak section — audience score 9.52/10

RT: 89 mins.

Director: KAOUTHER BEN HANIA

A sweeping love story spanning three decades. In Lebanon — a country cycling between prosperity and devastation — Nino and Yasmina are drawn together by a magnetic bond. As wars, collapse, and the August 4th explosion reshape the world around them, they face an impossible question: can you build a family and chart a path to happiness in a country that may never let you?

Awards:

. People's Choice Award, Giornate degli Autori (Venice) 2025

· Best Screenplay, Red Sea International Film Festival

· Best Picture, Asian World Fil.m Festival

· Jury Award + Best Acting Feature Film, Hollywood Arab Film Festival 2026

· Aurora Award, Tromsø International Film Festival

· Official Selection: Palm Springs IFF 2026

· San Francisco IFF 2026 · Mostra Internacional de Cinema São Paulo

· Official Selection of Lebanon, 98th Academy Awards®

RT: 109 mins.

Director: CYRIL ARIS