Mahdi Fleifel

Cousins Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. When Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan to pose as smugglers in an attempt to get them out of their desperate situation before it is too late.

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A stranger by the lake with a valuable possession. A journey home after serving time in jail. A friendship evolving from childhood to adulthood. Discover five risky situations where men and young boys take the plunge. The 5 short films are: A King, Gazing at the Sea [Le roi qui contemplait la mer] (2022); A Drowning Man (2017); Reo (2016); Summer Friends [L'amie de l'été] (2021); Summer Memories [Souvenir d'une après-midi d'été] (2021).

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Deserted landscapes, ancient ruins and abandoned shipwrecks at sea. Elefsina’s archeological sites don’t come close to being as hauntingly beautiful as these dead ships. They stand majestically like memorial sculptures and bring a magnetism to the eye. In fact, these are the neglected refugees of Elefsina. For how did they end up there, anyway? What's their story? That's the story I want to know. Elefsina Notre Amour is a short sci-fi essay, a timeless archive, filmed on 16mm color Kodak.

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A sociological meditation on the different "exits" that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps.

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Immediately after a Palestinian man signs an online petition, he is thrown into a panic-inducing spiral of self-doubt. Over the course of a conversation with an understanding friend, he analyzes, deconstructs and interprets the meaning of his choice to publicly support the cultural boycott of Israel.

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45th Parallel focuses on the Haskell Free Library and Opera House—a unique municipal site between the jurisdictions of Canada and the United States. Constructed in 1904 under the patronage of the local Haskell family, this building was deliberately designed to straddle the frontier between Canada and the US as a symbolic act of unity in the transnational town of Stanstead. The performance about one border conflict is set on the site of a grey legal area and looks at how each border implicates the other, and how borders are not lines but, rather, richly layered spaces.

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An intimate, and often humorous, portrait of three generations of exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, in southern Lebanon. Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive, and illuminating study of belonging, friendship, and family in the lives of those for whom dispossession is the norm, and yearning their daily lives.

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A short film by Mahdi Fleifel.

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Cousins Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. When Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan to pose as smugglers in an attempt to get them out of their desperate situation before it is too late.

Open details →

A sociological meditation on the different "exits" that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps.

Open details →

Immediately after a Palestinian man signs an online petition, he is thrown into a panic-inducing spiral of self-doubt. Over the course of a conversation with an understanding friend, he analyzes, deconstructs and interprets the meaning of his choice to publicly support the cultural boycott of Israel.

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Alone and far from home, The Kid makes his way through a strange city looking for the means to get through his day. Surrounded by predators he is forced to make compromises merely to survive, his life of exile grows one day longer.

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“A dream came to me from who knows where having slept as two I awake as one / the other wasn’t there”. Two young men on a blind date start their journey outside the city. Unknowingly they become a part of maze of a pilgrimage of sadhus. They look around, they observe, they smile, they doubt, they whisper. They are lost, they are found. Two young men stroll curiously around the Kumbh Mela, a huge religious festival involving millions of Hindus. They are wearing modern clothing, which makes them stand out among the pilgrims, most of whom are in traditional dress. Kumbh Mela, which takes place every three years at one of the four major Hindu sites (Haridwar, Allahabad, Ujjain and Nasik), is seen as the biggest pilgrimage in the world, bringing the many faces of Hinduism together. There are naked sadhus smeared in ash, rich gurus collecting donations, musicians and other performers, and simple pilgrims washing away their sins by ritual bathing in the river.

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