Middle East: What Can Cinema Do? presented 50 films for a viewing-packed week. Documentaries were in the majority, proving that the political and economic woes of the region have not stifled the filmmakers, but rather encouraged them to speak up. Half the films were features; ten shorts and the rest were mid-length works.

Works by these Middle Eastern film directors were complemented by a certain number of films by European and American directors, notably from Switzerland, Spain, France, the USA and Mexico. All the films presented at the event, in alphabetical order, are available below for you to discover.

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Screening date : 27-11-2007 -- 13h30
Quelques miettes pour les oiseaux (A Few Crumbs for the Birds )
Ruwayshed, a no man's land at the border. The last village in Jordan before Iraq...
I went there without a real scenario. I was looking for my film for a couple of days until Annemarie, the director of photography, played a song for me from an Iraqi-Palestinian band while the car was leading us to the Iraqi border.

Screening date : 22-11-2007 -- 20h30
Rafah: Chronicle of a City in the Gaza Strip
An intimate portrait of a Palestinian town during a year of upheaval (Sept. 12, 2005- Sept 12, 2006). Situated at the southern tip of the Gaza strip, Rafah is cut in two by the Philadelphia road, a corridor of security along the Egyptian border. The city's destiny encounters an about-face the night of September 12, 2005 when the Israeli army withdraws from the Gaza strip. The Israelis are gone from the Philadelphia road and the settlements that surrounded the town have vanished.

Screening date : 22-11-2007 -- 15h30
Stories from the Middle East – The Mall & Power
A project commissioned by the World Health Organization. Four short films portraying lives of Palestinians and Israelis, inspired by the WHO definition of health: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" (WHO Constitution 1948).

Screening date : 25-11-2007 -- 13h30
Telling Strings
After the expulsion of the Palestinians and the setting up of the state of Israel in 1948, the young Palestinian Elias Jubran stayed on in the place where he was born. However, because of the political situation, he and his family lived in comparative isolation. Music helped him to overcome this isolation and provided him with an escape.

Screening date : 26-11-2007 -- 18h15
Terminator, the Last Battle
On February 14, 2005, former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri's murder set off an unprecedented popular uprising.

Young people from various political parties accused Syria of the crime and organised a sit-in in the city centre of Beirut to demand the withdrawal of the Syrian military after 30 years of occupation.

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