Favourite Middle Eastern Films - 2018

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

The true story of Hossain Sabzian, a cinephile who impersonated the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf to convince a family they would star in his so-called new film.

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

After enrolling in a school, an impoverished boy finds conflict with his classmates and decides to compete to earn their respect.

A documentary which explores what did or did not happen on a rainy night a young boy allegedly saved a train from crashing.

The story of Mohammed, a blind Iranian boy and his father, Hashem, who is always oscillating between accepting his son as he is and abandoning him, as he represents a burden for him, after the loss of his wife.

Set in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness", of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude.

Set on the sun-drenched southern coast of Iran, "Harmonica" begins as a young boy receives a musical present from abroad. Fascinated and envious, his friends make him the leader of the pack, as they compete for the privilege of holding the harmonica or even blowing a few notes. No one is more obsessed than Amiroo, gentle and heavy-set, who seems willing to do anything to get close to the harmonica and its owner.

A romantic drama about a working-class woman and her experiences traveling back home.

A Palestinian father seeks Israeli permission to waive curfew to give his son a fine wedding. Tensions rise as the ceremony proceeds, with youths plotting violence and a loose horse running into a minefield, forcing unlikely cooperation.

When one of his horses is killed by an automobile, and when it is clear that neither justice nor charity will prevail, the man begins a slow slide into despair. On the advice of a local holy man, and fuelled by an indefatigable optimism, he sets out into the desert in quest of a mythical lost treasure, slipping further and further into that final, ineluctable moment.

A farmer has a violent dispute with his fellow villagers by claiming ownership of the water that comes out of his land. He is as sexually frustrated as he is greedy.

A group of men set out in search of a dead body in the Anatolian steppes.

The story of a Turkish Alevi family trying to illegally emigrate to Switzerland, a country they know only from a postcard.

The story of prophet "Muhammad" and the delivery of the message of God "Allah."

Near the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of an American invasion, refugee children, like 13-year-old Kak (Ebrahim), gauge and await their fate.

A documentary about real divorce cases in Iran's tribunals.

Yusuf is released from prison after serving a ten-year sentence. He is scared of life outside as he goes to an address given to him by another prisoner.

Young Iranian Kurdish siblings try to save the youngest of them, who is seriously ill.

A newspaper salesman at the train station in Cairo develops an unhealthy obsession with a woman who sells refreshments.

Historical fresco recounting the life and times of the Prophet Mohammed, the last of the Abrahamic religion, in the sense that, according to Islam, he completed and sealed the monotheistic revelation made to Abraham.

The story of survival of 2 children in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Their mother has been imprisoned for "adultery" and their father is in Guantanamo Bay.

On the last Wednesday before the spring solstice ushers in the Persian New Year, people set off fireworks following an ancient Zoroastrian tradition. Rouhi, spending her first day at a new job, finds herself in the midst of a different kind of fireworks -- a domestic dispute between her new boss and his wife.

A director and his son return to a region damaged by the Guilan earthquake, hoping to find the children who appeared in his film a few years earlier.

A young Palestinian freedom fighter agrees to work as an informant after he's tricked into an admission of guilt by association in the wake of an Israeli soldier's killing.