Before the Storm Independent Arab Film

The "Before the Storm" series focuses on independent cinema from Arab countries. Over six different evenings, the Goethe Institute will be presenting insights into the period before the "Arab Spring", showing both features and shorts about societies in the "waiting room of time".

Arab Shorts
"Arab Shorts"refers to a whole range of different things: a small festival, a website (www.arabshorts.net), a travel program to enable those involved in Arab film to travel to Germany and Germans to travel to the Middle East, and a series of moderated screenings and publications. "Arab Shorts" is a three-year project being carried out by Goethe Institutes in North Africa and the Middle East which seeks to create a more intensive network of contacts between those active in the independent Arab film scene and Europe. The project also seeks to provide insights into an area of special cultural resonance – a world beyond the shackles of state control where an unstinting proximity to reality and artistic radicalism find articulation. A total of 19 curators put together a selection of films and present them on a yearly basis.