Ayed Morrar, an unlikely community organizer, unites Palestinians from all political factions and Israelis to save his village from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier. Victory seems improbable until his 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the front lines.

July 2006. A war breaks out in Lebanon. A new war, but not just one more war. A war that crushes the hopes of peace and the momentum of our generation.
We no longer know what to write, what stories to recount, what images to show. We ask ourselves: “What can cinema do?”

A devoted son of Holocaust survivors and ardent critic of Israeli foreign policy, the polarizing American political scientist and author Norman Finkelstein has been called a lunatic and self-hating Jew by some, and an inspirational revolutionary by others. Uncompromising even in the face of his recent denial of tenure at DePaul University, Finkelstein is revealed as a complex, politically isolated figure who puts the pursuit of justice above the safety of his academic career. Exploring the difficult and deeply-felt issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, American Radical is the insightful and enraging documentary that follows Finkelstein around the world as he attempts to negotiate a powerful voice among his impassioned critics and supporters.

Women across the Arab world are redefining their role as leaders in Islam. In director Brigid Maher’s insightful documentary film, Veiled Voices, three influential women Islamic leaders are profiled—along with their families and the communities in which they serve: Ghina Hammoud in Lebanon, Dr. Du’ad Saleh in Egypt and Huda al-Habash in Syria.

The three personal stories featured in Veiled Voices give insight into how Muslim women are increasingly willing to challenge the status quo from within their religion, promoting Islam as a powerful force for positive transformation in the world.

In one of the most enduring and popular films of Chahine’s career, Cairo’s main railroad station serves as a microcosm of Egyptian society, with a community of railroad workers and drink vendors living together in abandoned train cars. When the crippled newspaper dealer Kinawi (played by Chahine himself) is rebuffed by the beautiful-but-indifferent Hanuma (Hind Rostom), he kidnaps the object of his obsessive desire—with disastrous consequences.
Chahine’s steamy noir masterpiece of repressed sexuality, madness and violence earned the director international acclaim when it was nominated for the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1958.