Hold onto your hats Australia because it’s just one month until the opening of the 2010 Arab Film Festival! Opening in Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre on 1 July, the festival will travel to Melbourne (9-11 July), Canberra (15-18 July), Adelaide (24-25 July) and Brisbane (30-31 July). BOOK TICKETS NOW!

Action-packed drama, documentary, thrillers, animation and shorts – once again the Festival program is packed with fresh stories from across the Arab world.

We busted out of Sydney last year and took the festival to audiences in Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide. In 2010 we will again tour across the country with a selection of Arab films to share with Australian audiences.

This year our highlights include:

• Australia’s first screening of a multilingual Emirati film – the sexy and provocative City of Life. Director Ali Mostafa joins us for opening night.

• Beloved Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s latest quirky, witty and visually luscious film examining his family story since 1948: The Time that Remains

• 12 Angry Lebanese – the story of Roumieh Prison inmates transformed into powerful theatre makers, directed by Zeina Daccache

• The world-first Arabian Nights Animation Collection: short animations influenced by everything from Sinbad to manga, that take us places Disney’s Aladdin could never touch

• Harragas: the harrowing tale of young Algerian lovers who make the mad, brave decision to attempt an escape to Spain by boat.

• Egyptian Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story, fresh from the Venice and Toronto film fests, following a woman juggling work, husband and politics in a tale of our time

• Kick Off: what starts as an uplifting soccer match has sinister consequences when it’s played in an Iraqi refugee shanty

• Our famous Makhlouta session of provocative international shorts, including local Arab-Australian filmmakers

• The renowned local oud player Mohamed Youssef playing live at the launch

Opening night tickets are on sale now. $30 per person (film+sweets+party)

BOOK TICKETS NOW!

If you’re tired of the depictions of the Arab world delivered to you on the small screen, come and see another perspective on the big screen – Arab stories told by Arab filmmakers.

Nothing else has the power to immerse you in another place quite the way cinema can and this festival will give you the inside story on the contemporary Arab world. Walk the streets with these filmmakers, follow the stories of people from Egypt, UAE, Lebanon, Dubai, Kuwait, Palestine, Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Iraq and Australia. Unravel the huge themes and poignant human struggles, join us!