Jalal Altawil

Foreign Language

Fanny, a shy and lonely teenager, goes on a language exchange to Germany. In Leipzig, she meets her pen pal, Lena, a teenager eager to become politically active. Fanny is troubled. To win over Lena, she invents a life for herself, to the extent of becoming trapped in her lies.

Changing Rooms

César is 12 when his older sister Lou is the victim of sexual assault. In the changing rooms of his fencing club, the only standard that matters is violence. César wishes he could measure up but may not be armed for the fights to come.

Green Border

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so called “green border” between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian family intertwine.

Riad

RIAD, a former legionnaire suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder that destroyed his family, gets back to his son MEHDI after months of separation, in a social centerfor family meetings.

Cairo Conspiracy

A fisherman's son is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power of Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, dies and the young student becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt's religious and political elite.

Neighbours

A small village on the Syrian-Turkish border in the early 1980s: The six-year-old Kurdish boy Sero experiences his first school year in an Arab school and has to watch his small world being radically changed in the course of an absurd nationalism.

Shahin

Recently immigrated to France from Syria, Ghaydaa is preparing for a special day: It is the first return of her son Shahin in France, but the separation between mother and son is proving more difficult than she thought.

Just Retired

Marilou and Philippe prepare for their future retirement in Portugal. But their daughter separates and a whole procession of solicitations falls on them.

Burqa City

Souleymane and Leila just got married, for better or for worse. The better is that they love each other very much. The worse is that they live in an absurd and kafkaesque country.

Palestine 36

The picture explores the lead-up to and events of the Palestinian Arab Revolt from 1936 to 1939. As villages rise-up against British rule, protagonist Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping an increasingly fascist Europe, and Palestinian calls for independence, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.

Among the Almond Trees

Maysan and Iyad, a Syrian couple, work at a Breton fish auction and with their daughter seem to constitute a happy family. They have just been informed their residence permits have been approved. But then Iyad asks a question his wife wishes she hadn't heard. Great acting in this dissection of a marriage.

Transit Game

In the northern mountains of Lebanon, a Syrian man hoping to reunite with family torn apart by war encounters two Palestinian children whose own stories of exile provide a glimpse into the uncertainties he must face as a refugee.