Ajami is a bold crime drama set on the margins of an Arab ghetto. Working with a cast of non-actors in the real streets of Ajami itself, the film deftly meshes characters and conflicts with unsentimental compassion, uncompromising realism, and harrowing violence.
This acclaimed film depicts the clash between culture and family as seen through the eyes of a young Tunisian woman balancing the traditional expectations of her family with her creative life as the singer in a politically charged rock band.
Director Nabil Ayouch (Razzia, Horses of God) drew on his own experience opening a youth cultural center in Casablanca for this story of a former rapper named Anas who takes a job teaching hip hop in an underprivileged neighborhood.
Set entirely in a police truck, a number of detainees from different political and social backgrounds are brought together by fate, during the turmoil that followed the ousting of former president Morsi from power.
In the not-so-distant future, the free-spirited Badri family have escaped the toxic pollution and social unrest of Beirut by seeking refuge in an idyllic mountain home. Without warning, the government starts to build a garbage landfill right outside their fence, intruding on their domestic utopia.
Inspired by a true story and the poetry of the North African writer Fatima Elayoubi, who immigrated knowing very little French and slowly taught herself the language. A patient, reflective study of a woman pressured by her children and her neighbors alike to assimilate into a culture of which she's wary.
This riveting exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood reconstructs the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and performance to examine how the Tunisian woman’s two eldest were radicalized by Islamic extremists.
Gaza, today. Sixty-year-old fisherman Issa is secretly in love with Siham, a woman who works at the market with her daughter Leila. When he discovers an ancient phallic statue of Apollo in his fishing nets, Issa hides it, not knowing what to do with this mysterious and potent treasure.
Ten-year-old Yachine and his thirteen-year-old brother Hamid live in Sidi Moumen, an impoverished slum on the outskirts of Casablanca. Hamid, though just a child, works hard to sustain his family by any means, but eventually get involved with the "wrong crowd" and becomes one of the local neighborhood bosses.
Adam and Lamia are a Christian Arab couple from Nazareth – members of a vanishing minority in the Holy Land. When Lamia gets pregnant, Adam decides it’s time to make it big and provide for his family by entering the biggest local business – religion. He begins to sell… Holy Air.
Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd—a Jew, an African, and an Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point.
Sam seeks to escape the Syrian War, but in order to travel to Europe and be reunited with the love of his life, he accepts to have his back tattooed by one of the world’s most prominent contemporary artist.
The story of Soraya, a Brooklyn-born woman who travels to Palestine to retrieve her grandfather's savings, frozen in a Jaffa bank account after his 1948 exile. Her status as a dispossessed exile and encounter with contemporary politics provides a rare glimpse in to the Middle East of today.
Jordan, 1967. The world is alive with change: brimming with reawakened energy, new styles, music and an infectious sense of hope. In Jordan, a different kind of change is underway as tens of thousands of refugees pour across the border from Palestine.
5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son.
In an Arab-American neighborhood, neighbors think they have been under surveillance for over a decade. While investigating their experiences, Assia uncovers tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counter terrorism investigations ever conducted.
This documentary looks at the life and work of Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, who first garnered attention in the 1970s when she pioneered contemporary forms of geometric mirror works.
Deepa Kumar, a leading scholar on Islamophobia, argues that U.S. media have turned Arabs and Muslims into the new face of terror, even though homegrown right-wing violent extremist groups have far outnumbered attacks by Muslims and Arabs since Sept. 12, 2001.
In the shadow of a wall stands a new generation of Palestinian. With defiant creativity they prove that no matter the height of the obstacle, one can always climb.
When she was a young lawyer, Kholoud Al-Faqih walked into the office of Palestine’s Chief Justice and announced she wanted to join the bench. He laughed at her. But just a few years later, Kholoud became the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a (Islamic law) courts.
Women played a major role in the revolutions that swept across the Middle East, some even becoming icons. However, the days of the Arab Spring also marked a shocking and unchecked surge in sexual harassment cases suffered by women in Egypt.
Filmed at times with a hidden camera and at times under extreme duress, Palestinian-American filmmaker Nida Sinnokrot gives us a lasting chronicle of a people and their ancient life-giving orchards, ever threatened by destruction.
The film explores a long line of degrading images of Arabs-from Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs and gun-wielding "terrorists"-along the way offering devastating insights into the origin of these stereotypic images, their development at key points in US history, and why they matter today.
The Speed Sisters are the first all-woman race car driving team in the Middle East. Grabbing headlines and turning heads at improvised tracks across the West Bank, these five women have sped their way into the heart of the gritty, male-dominated Palestinian street car-racing scene.
In popular Western imagination, a Muslim woman in a veil – or hijab – is a symbol of Islamic oppression. But what does it mean for women’s freedom when a democratic country forbids the wearing of the veil?
MC Library provides both physical media (DVDs) and streaming films. You can search for films (both DVDs and streaming films) using RaptorSearch, or search in an individual streaming media database.
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Current Montgomery College students, faculty, and staff can borrow materials from any MC Library location with their MC ID card. In addition, these users can access electronic resources, such as e-books, from anywhere by entering their M number when prompted.
Community users (those not currently affiliated with MC) can apply for a community user card, which allows them to borrow materials and use other library resources. Community users are not eligible to use electronic resources from off-campus but can use electronic resources on campus.
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