New York Arab Festival 2025 Shorts Program

In recognition of National Arab American Heritage Month, and acknowledging the significance of an ongoing dialogue with Arab communities in New York City—especially within Museum of the Moving Image’s Queens neighborhood, an area with a thriving Arab population—this program aims to showcase the diversity of contemporary Arab cinema and video art through a wide range of cultural references, visual languages, and artistic choices. Programmed by artist, theorist, and curator Adham Hafez, it takes place within the framework of the yearly New York Arab Festival, dedicated to contemporary Arab art in New York City. This year’s selection of short films encompasses a range of genres and styles, including documentary, animation, poetry, and dance films

This year’s screenings will be presented in two sections. The first will feature experimental formats pushing the boundaries of film and video, with a strong focus on choreography and gesture. The second will focus on short-form fiction and docufiction films that explore themes of migration, mobility, and displacement, including the modern classic Naim wa Wadee’a by acclaimed filmmaker Najwa Najjar, and the New York City premiere of Alia Haju’s mixed animation-documentary fantastical film Ship of Fools (pictured above).  

The screenings will be followed by panel discussion with selected artists, including Sarah Brahim, Fadl Fakhouri, and Alia Haju in conversation with New York Arab Festival’s co-founder Adam Kucharski.

 
PART ONE: Experimental Shorts 

Assimilation
Dir. Fadl Fakhouri. 2021, 2 mins. Palestine/U.S. The artist performs gestures that echo violence and questions on assimilation.

Natural Dreaming
Dir. Ziad Abdel-Aal. 2025, 3 mins. Egypt/U.S. A fever dream of nature, poetry, and digital effects. Raw footage and photography from nature are distorted in a dreamlike digital haze. Featuring sections of the poem “On a Day Like This” by Mahmoud Darwish.

One Hundred Billion Cells
Dir. Ziad Abdel-Aal. 2025, 1 min. Egypt/U.S. This hypnotic short film, shot vertically, features a dreamy blend of transformed photos from natural spaces. Set to an original electronic score by the filmmaker, it includes photographic patterns from Yolande Daniels’ “Tea Cozy” sculpture installation. 

The Return of the Spirit
Dir. Andrew Riad. 2025, 5 mins. Egypt/U.S. This mythical and fantastical short explores three Ancient Egyptian deities in the MET Museum via their statues as they “come to life.”

I dreamed the water gazing at me
Dir. Khaled Jarrar.  2019, 4 mins. Palestine/U.S.This fantastical short film, shot in historic Palestine, uses allegory and metaphor to explore themes of displacement and alienation. 

‘He said, we must forget’  
Dir. Sarah Brahim.  2023, 9 mins. Saudi Arabia/U.S. Using images collected over the course of an entire year, these two films intersect and oppose each other, one undoing what the other brings forward, with a technique based on hand-painting. Through fragments of images, of sensations, Brahim tries to understand how we involuntarily forget certain things to move ahead. Sound by Carmine Calia, and editing by Massimiliano Così.  

Bodyland
Dir. Sarah Brahim. 2021, 3 mins. Saudi Arabia/U.S. Hands become expressive appendages and sites for memory. The choreographed performance is an embodied archive of collected gestures, transmitting specific meanings: how pain resides in the body, the unseen body, intergenerational connection, and grief we hold. Commissioned by Rotana Shaker for the Roundabout exhibition in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

PART TWO: On Displacement and Migration 

Naim wa Wadee’a
Dir. Najwa Najjar. 1999, 20 mins. Palestine/U.S. Award winning Palestinian American filmmaker Najwa Najjar confronts us with the story of Nakba, displacement, and families coming undone at the brink of new borders. This documentary explores social life in pre-1948 Yaffa through a miniature portrait of the filmmaker’s grandparents, and the effect leaving Yaffa had on them. Naim wa Wadee’a is a modern Arab classic, as it addresses timeless questions with eloquence and nostalgia.  

Omertá
Dir. Mariem Al Ferjani and Mehdi Hamnane. 2018, 18 mins. Tunisia. Donia, her brother Yahya, Ali, and Ibrahim are celebrating Donia’s last night in Tunis before she leaves for France. They decide to end the night on the beach and share some joints. New York City premiere. 

Ship of Fools 
Dir. Alia Haju. 2024, 29 mins. Lebanon/U.S. Amid the tumult of Beirut, Alia meets Abu Samra, a man training to gain superpowers. She decides to train with him. Their shared monsters help them make sense of the insanity of Lebanon. A poetic journey that mixes animation with documentary elements. New York City premiere.  

PANEL: On Image-Making and Agency
A panel discussion will be held featuring directors and artists Alia Haju, Sarah Brahim, and Fadl Fakhouri, in conversation with festival co-founder Adam Kucharski, an urbanist, artist, and writer. The participants will discuss the contemporary landscape of image-making and film within the Arab world, focusing on the agency of artists to establish their own context through poetic, technical, and philosophical methodologies. 

 

Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. 

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About the New York Arab Festival:

New York Arab Festival (NYAF) is a multidisciplinary festival spanning all genres of art, culture, design, cuisine, philosophy, and intersecting industries. It programs arts and culture from the Arabic-speaking region and the Arab diaspora and showcases Arab American artists. NYAF was established in 2022 to commemorate Arab American Heritage Month and fight the erasure of Arab and Arab American identities from NYC, a place Arabs have called home for over three centuries. NYAF is organized and run by its founding members: Artistic Director and Curator Adham Hafez, Urbanist and Curator Adam Kucharski, and founding Senior Producer Cindy Sibilsky. NYAF is produced by HaRaKa Platform and powered by Wizara LLC in partnership with many celebrated institutions in NYC and worldwide. NYAF 2025 runs April 1-May 30.