The San Diego Arab Film Festival presents films from and about the Arab World. The Festival includes 8 screenings over 5 nights. Tickets may be purchased for each screening as well as for 2 packages at discounted prices, one package is a festival pass for all 8 screenings and one for 3 tickets of your choice. Also available for purchase is a Palestinian dinner (served cafeteria style) The menu varies for each night.

Tonight, the first screening includes the short films, Hind Under Siege and If I Must Die – A Reading, and the feature film Sudan, Remember Us. The second screening includes the short Worse Than Nuking: A Family’s tale of Survival and the feature film A Sad and Beautiful World. The dinner menu will include musakhan, a traditional Palestinian dish of baked chicken, carmelized onions and sumac served over bread,, and mujadarah, a traditional vegetarian Palestinian dish of lentils, rice and carmelized onion served with plain yogurt.

Screening #1 starts at 6:00 PM.

Hind Under Siege directed by Naji Fawwaz Mustafa (13 min)

Hind Under Siege is a short film that tells the story of a real phone call between the Red Crescent and 6-year-old Hind Rajab, who became trapped in a car while hiding, in Gaza. The film unfolds through the perspective of Rana Al-Faqih, a compassionate and resilient Red Crescent worker, and those who bore witness to the event. It offers an intimate and powerful portrayal of courage, helplessness, and the human toll of war — as experienced by those who tried to help and those who were left behind.

If I Must Die – A Reading directed by Chris Daley (4min)

An animated piece dedicated to Palestine: the animator's interpretation of "If I must die", a poem written by the late Palestinian professor Dr. Refaat Alareer.

Sudan, Remember Us directed by Hind Meddeb (78 min)

Shajane, Maha, Muzamil, Khatab and the voice of the poet Chaikhoon. They are in their twenties, politically active and artistically creative. This film is a cinematic chorus, the collective portrait of a generation fighting for freedom with their words, poems and chants. Faced with a corrupted army and a paramilitary militia responsible of war crimes in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile, they could have lost heart before starting. Without the dream guiding them, the power of imagination and the might of poetic discourse, they would not have overthrown the former regime. The film relates the uneven struggle that pitted the voices of the revolution against the fire of the militia.

Screening #2 starts at 8:15 PM

Worse Than Nuking: A Family’s Tale of Survival directed by Kareem El Damanhoury (16 min)

Worse Than Nuking follows Fedaa, a pediatrician and mother of three living in Gaza, as she struggles to care for children in a hospital while shielding her own family through two relentless years of war.

A Sad and Beautiful World directed by Cyril Aris (110 min)

Across three decades of passion, loss, and hope, Nino and Yasmina are bound by a magnetic relationship. Torn between love and survival, they must decide whether to build a family and seek happiness in Lebanon, or leave their home, amid the country's unfolding tragedies.

A Sad and Beautiful World was Lebanon’s submission to the Oscars for Best International Feature.

Dinner is available 5:15 PM until 8:15 PM.