The Middle East Now Festival back to Florence

FLORENCE, ITALY – Middle eastern contemporary cinema and culture are returning to Florence on April 5-10 with the seventh edition of Middle East Now, an international festival of cinema, documentaries, art, photography, music, food, meetings and events entirely dedicated to this complex and fascinating area.

Forty films premiering in Italy are scheduled for screening at the Odeon cinema and the Stensen Institute.

The movies will feature stories and current events by well-established and up-and-coming filmmakers from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, Iran, Israel, Iraq, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and, for the first time, Saudi Arabia.

Turkish filmmaker Yeim Ustalu will be a special guest, Considered as one of the most important authors of contemporary Turkish cinema, a socially-engaged artist with an eye on political issues, she is an inspiration today for young talents.

Designer and illustrator of Lebanese descent Nour Flayhan and the founder of the famous Souk el-Tayev, the first organic market in Lebanon, Kamal Mouzawak, will attend the festival.

Middle East Now is a festival on cinema, documentaries, art and culture from the Middle East and North Africa, that is organized by the no-profit cultural association Map of Creation.

Middle East Now is the only event in Italy dedicated to the contemporary Middle East and North Africa, with the aim of highlighting the culture and identity of the countries of this part of the world and bringing them to the attention of the Italian public, overcoming stereotypes that often come out from the international mass media.

The Festival Programme is designed to give visibility to movies that do not normally find an Italian distribution and are selected among the most recent and significant Arab, Iranian and Afghan cinematography. Particular attention is given to the productions of directors who are emerging in the international cinema scenario.

The Festival is also enriched by exhibitions of photography, visual arts, painting, sculpture, debates and presentations of books, with the intention of presenting the complexity of cultural and artistic expression with which the Middle East as a whole is facing a difficult challenge from today’s leading role within the global world and the need to preserve its identity,  historical and cultural peculiarities.