Here are the films I saw during the film festival:
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This was a funny German film that looks at a dysfunctional family as the teenage daughter decides to convert to Islam. Her liberal parents cannot understand why she would want to oppress herself in this way, and the film follows the parents' journey of trying to understand their daughter and come to terms with her decision.
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Rashid & Rajab
This film is based on a common theme of "rich man and poor man swap places and experience each other's lives." A food delivery man and a wealthy executive get into a car accident, and when they come-to, they realize that their minds have swapped bodies. Hilarity ensues as they pretend to be each other and try to convince their wives and daughters that everything is normal. Eventually the truth comes out, and they find a fortune teller gypsy woman to help break the spell (although she's not much help; being electrocuted a lá What Women Want does the trick).
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Jusqu'ici Tout Va Bien (New Biz in the Hood!)
While the French title more closely translates as "so far so good," the English title is more literal about the actual movie. A business owner has claimed that his HQ office is in a bad part of town to get a tax write-off, but the auditors figure it out. To escape from getting in legal trouble, he moves his office into the sketchy area as well as hires locals to join his business. The film focuses on the employees and how they help grow the business. The movie is a bit silly and doesn't have a great plot, but I was entertained.
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I found this film to be a little like RBG or Seeing Allred, which are also documentaries about female lawyers fighting for justice. Lea Tsemel is a lawyer in Israel who represents Palestinian criminals in court. Of course the odds are already stacked against them because they have to go before an Israeli judge. The film focuses on a specific case of a 13-year-old boy who had wielded a knife, as had his 15-year-old friend. The elder boy was shot and killed by police. The younger one was hit by a car, and even though he was injured in the head, the police immediately took him into custody and started berating him during his interrogation. He himself had not killed anyone, nor was that ever his intention (he just wanted to scare people). The film never reveals what the boy looks like for his own safety; a cartoon is drawn over the footage instead (like in the photo above). In the end, he received nine years in prison and was charged as an adult rather than a juvenile. If we think the justice system in America is unfair, this film shows us that Israel's system is even worse. The police brutality shown in the movie is horrible. The work that Tsemel is doing is important, but she herself was not portrayed in the best light: she tells her interns to "eat shit" and calls her fellow lawyer a "motherfucker." So...not the nicest woman despite the good work she is doing.
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Exfiltrés (Escape from Raqqa)
This film was difficult to watch because I had zero sympathy for the female protagonist. She becomes brainwashed (I assume through the internet) and converts to Islam; she then wants to move to the Middle East with her son. BUT she doesn't tell husband any of this. Instead, she lies, saying that she's taking the boy to Turkey where they're meeting up with her friend. He soon learns this is a lie when he sees said friend in Paris. The film goes between the husband trying to find his wife and son (mainly through his boss' son, who somehow works in foreign relations in the Middle East), and then the wife realizing the horrible situation she's in and how she wants to get out. The film is exciting to watch, and you're always wondering what will happen next. But it's hard to care about someone who is so clearly self-absorbed; if she had died, I wouldn't have cared. But through quick thinking, connections, and lots of money, she and the boy safely return to France. She is immediately arrested for kidnapping and spends three months in jail. But get this: the husband takes her back! And this is a true story! That man must really love her, even though the feeling clearly isn't mutual. Poor (stupid) guy.
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Un Divan a Tunis (Arab Blues) [Won the festival's Jury Award]
I like both the French and English titles. The French one translates as "a divan to Tunis," which alludes to the couch that patients sit on when meeting with a psychologist; the blues are what the clients are feeling and why they turn to Selma (played by Golshifteh Farahani) in the first place. Selma is a licensed psychoanalyst in Paris, but she comes back to Tunis where she grew up to open her own practice. We mainly see the protagonist as she is meeting with clients and her continued run-ins with cop Naim (played by Majd Mastoura) as he tries to tell her she cannot practice without a local license. I was amused by the film, and I especially love Selma's effortless sense of style (I wanted all of her clothes).
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A common thread I saw in all of the movies was that European films are not nearly as politically correct as American movies are. There were certain jokes or instances that were supposed to be funny, but I was cringing instead of laughing. For example, in Arab Blues, one of her clients gets violent assuming she's a spy; another time the cop tells her to blow in his face because he doesn't have a breathalyzer. In both cases I was worried for the female character's safety, and that's never funny. I was actually surprised by how many audience members were laughing at moments like this. I'm not sure if this means that Americans are too sensitive, or that the rest of the world needs to follow our lead and realize that some things aren't funny. Ever.
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