The five day event, which takes place every two years and celebrates the best of Arab cinema, will be held from 2nd to 6th April 2025 in the Swiss city.
Since 2012, the Arab Film Festival Zurich (AFFZ) has been an exciting festival for contemporary Arab cinema. The event takes place every two years and has established itself as a permanent fixture in the Swiss cultural landscape. This year’s festival program aims to point out various aspects of Arab culture in a nuanced and complex manner and to provide insights into Arab culture, history, religion and society.
That said, the Arab Film Festival Zurich AFFZ makes an important contribution to intercultural dialogue and understanding. It gives an interested audience the opportunity to engage with the diversity of the Arab world. Its audiences, according to festival co-president and co-director Aida Schlaepfer Alhassani, are composed of members of the Arab diaspora and people interested in world cinema and different cultures alike.
The Iraqi-Lebanese Alhassani spent her youth between her parents’ homelands and then relocated to Egypt to attend the prestigious High Cinema Institute at the Academy of Arts in Cairo, where she earned a master’s degree in film Directing. A filmmaker herself, with credits like Gangs of Baghdad (2007), Homeland (2010) and the 2021 title Souls in Transit, Alhassani, along with the AFFZ co-director, Swiss-born journalist and programmer Michel Bodmer, aim to feature a diverse and comprehensive look into Arab cultures.
This year’s standouts include an exciting cinematic journey into cinema from Sudan and Saudi Arabia, in the AFFZ’s special section Focus Countries. Films from Sudan include Goodbye Julia by Mohamed Kordofani, which debuted in Cannes in 2023 and Amjad Abu Alala’s 2019 title You Will Die at Twenty which world premiered in Venice.
From Saudi, comes the underrated feature debut by Ahd Kamel — known to Western audiences for her roles in Haifaa al-Mansour’s groundbreaking Wadjda — titled My Driver and I. The film, which world premiered at the 2024 Red Sea International Film Festival, is an autobiographical look at a young Saudi woman’s bond with her Sudanese driver and features a cameo by Abu Alala, as well as breakout performances by Roula Dakheelallah and singer/actor Mishaal Tamer.
Also featured in the Saudi showcase is Egyptian helmer Abu Bakr Shawky’s Arabian camel adventure Hajjan, which was shot in Jordan and within NEOM, as one of the film’s producers told me in this interview for Screen International, shortly after the film premiered in Toronto.
The AFFZ has a main competition, where feature-length films and documentaries are considered. An independent three-member jury then selects the two winners from the 12 new feature-length films included in the Competition section. The prize money amounts to CHF 3,000 (around $3,500) for Best Film and CHF 2,000 (around $2,300) for Best Director. In addition, this year’s edition will also hand out a special Audience Award, designed to celebrate the voices and opinions of cinema’s most essential aspect — its audience.
Included in the 12 features up for the Best Film and Best Director awards are Tunisian-Italian helmer Mehdi M. Barsaoui’s Aïsha; Sofia Alaoui’s sci-fi drama Animalia, which won the Special Jury Award at Sundance in 2023'; Palestinian helmer Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays — Copti was one half of the Oscar-nominated team behind the feature Ajami (2009), which won the Caméra d'or at Cannes — and Moroccan helmer Asmae El Moudir’s groundbreaking doc The Mother of All Lies.
Out of competition there are also several titles of interest, among them the beautiful Backstage by Afef Ben Mahmoud and Khalil Benkirane will screen and Ben Mahmoud will be at the festival to present it and do a special Q&A with the audience; the Egyptian Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo by Khaled Mansour, a noirish tribute to the downtrodden in urban Egypt; and Meryam Joobeur’s metaphysical Who Do I Belong To, the feature long version of her Oscar-nominated short Brotherhood.
In addition to films screened, there will be masterclasses and encounters with the public, plus the Animation Lab at AFFZ which takes place over three focused days, and is dedicated to advancing the production and post-production phases of four carefully selected feature-length animation projects.
Also new this year is a Virtual Reality (VR) section, aiming to provide festival goers with immersive experiences in the heart of Arab cinematic narratives. This innovative addition reflects the festival's commitment to showcasing emerging forms of artistic expression and engaging a younger audience eager for discoveries.
For the full program and to find out more on the AFFZ, check out the festival’s website.
Image courtesy of the Arab Film Festival Zurich, used with permission.