Safar Barlek

Robert Lachmann was a German-Jewish ethnomusicologist. In the 1930s, his radio show "Oriental Music" explored the musical traditions of Palestine and included regular live performances by musicians from different ethnic and religious groups. Inspired by Lachmann’s musicological studies, Palestinian artist Jumana Manna travels through Israel and the Palestinian territories of today with recordings from the programme. What do these songs sound like now when performed by Moroccan, Kurdish, or Yemenite Jews, by Samaritans, members of the urban and rural Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians?

A documentary film about Syria with its diverse civilizations and history. Where the hero of the film gets lost between his questions about history, culture, and identity, and his attempts to see the story of Syrian history. In the film, the narrator takes us on a journey through Syrian history that diversifies into five basic civilizational shifts, from the agricultural revolution to writing and the emergence of cities to trade until the advent of Christianity and up to the cultural achievement of Islamic civilization.

Ali Abd-El-Zaher is a member of an Islamic radical group which has been launching attacks against the government and the society under the orders of the spiritual leader Brother Saif. Ali manages to assasinate an officer, but as he escapes from the authorities he gets hit by a car driven by Sewsan, the daughter of a respected Muslim family living in the Maadi district. Sewsan's father who is a surgeon and his family take care of the injured terrorist who then tries to conceal the truth about his personality, such as his dislike of music, unveiled women and Western life styles.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the nun Maria is forced to flee her convent. She takes refuge in a brothel, until it is liberated by a woman's anarchist group. Maria joins the group and eventually goes to the front. The women's group faces the problems of fighting not only the nationalists, but also factions on the left seeking to impose a more traditional military structure.

In a peaceful village, the mayor, seeing that the population is bored with tranquility, invents the mystical figure of Rajeh, and tells stories to villagers about the exploits of Rajeh, who kills and maims and steals. One day the mayor tells the villagers that Rajeh is heading to the village itself and they better be careful. Two smart men notice that the mayor was lying and that it is all his imagination. So they go on making good on the fictitious person and steal money and assault the mayor in the dark saying that they were Rajeh. Eventually, an old man with the name of Rajeh arrives in the village, amid public fears. Then it became obvious that Rajeh was merely a seller of rings for weddings and he wanted to marry his son to Rima, the mayor's niece. The two bad guys willingly go to jail for making use of the mayor's joke.

An athletic young man falls for a beautiful woman with a troubled brother. Handsome Yehia (Hafez) may come from a troubled background, but he's always strived to make the best of his life. When Yehia falls for the beautiful Samia (Iman), he believes he has finally found the woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life. Trouble soon arises, however, when Samia's delinquent stepbrother begins doing everything in his power to sabotage the couple's relationship.

"Behind every strong man is a strong woman!", Mumine shouts as her husband is arrested. She has 4 children, she's in her mid-30s, and she's the wife of a Crimean Tatar political prisoner. Muslim Crimean Tatars have been oppressed for a long time. They were deported under Stalin, allowed to return under Gorbachev, and since the occupation of Crimea in 2014 under Putin, they are being persecuted again. "Return" is a portrait of Mumine and Maye, two strong women struggling with the consequences of oppression. Their traditional understanding of their role as women does not stand in the way of their dedication. They possess strength, beauty and dignity. Only in their most intimate moments, they are overwhelmed by desperate helplessness.

Depicts a continuation of the "Battle of Mayang", an all-out war against the neighboring country Zhao that Shin and Wang Ki fought in in the previous work "Flame of Fate".