Original language
Arabic-language films in Berlin
Films originally in Arabic (العربية), screening in their original version in Berlin's independent cinemas. All showtimes are OV or OmU/OmdU/OmeU – never dubbed.
Treat Me Like Your Mother(2025)
Documentary
Four trans women from Lebanon—Em Abed, Jamal Abdo, Antonella, and Mama Jad—recount lives shaped by resilience, love, and loss. Their stories span from the groundbreaking state-funded gender-affirming surgery of 1997 to the disappearance of Beirut’s once-safe queer spaces. Through personal photographs, archival footage, and recollections of places like the Raouche strip, their voices resurrect a forgotten history of community and survival amid war and oppression. Interwoven with the filmmaker’s own journey of self-discovery, this intimate documentary traces four decades of trans life in Beirut, celebrating friendship, identity, and the enduring spirit of chosen family.
Tales of the Wounded Land(2025)
Documentary
As war engulfs South Lebanon, a family flees their home while bombs reduce their town to ruins. Returning to devastation, they find only fragments of what once was, yet among the wreckage, the community clings to a fragile hope that peace and renewal will come.
The Stranger(2021)
Drama
In a small village in the occupied Golan Heights, the life of a desperate unlicensed doctor, who is going through an existential crisis, takes another unlucky turn when he encounters a man wounded in the war in Syria. Overturning all community expectations in times of war and national crisis, he ventures forth to meet his newly found destiny.
aKasha(2018)
Comedy, Romance
A Kasha is a universal offbeat love story set in a time of civil war - but the war is in Sudan and it is happening right now. We follow Adnan, an AK47-loving rebel, his long-suffering love interest, Lina, and the armydodging Absi, over a fateful 24 hours in a rebel-held area of Sudan.
Adieu Bonaparte(1985)
Drama, History, War
This big-budget historical epic from acclaimed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine features a crazed turn by Patrice Chereau as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film, an Egyptian-French co-production, deals with Napoleon's occupation of Alexandria and its effect on a typical Egyptian family. Michel Piccoli leads the cast as a general in Napoleon's army who tentatively befriends a local poet and falls in love with two young Egyptian brothers, reflecting complex themes of colonial desire, affection, and personal connection.
Tajouj(1977)
Drama, History, Romance
Beginning of the 20th century in the east of Sudan. Tajouj is the beautiful cousin of a young tribesman who falls in love with her and proclaims his love out loud in a song. However, the traditions of his tribe forbid such love, and his uncle refuses his request to marry Tajouj. But after the young man leaves the village and declares his remorse, the marriage is finally allowed after all. In the meantime, however, another man has expressed interest in Tajouj. A story full of jealousy ensues, which ends in tragedy.
Roqia(2025)
Horror
Two parallel stories. In the present day, the disciple of an old Raqi (a Muslim exorcist) fears that his master’s dementia will unleash evil. In 1992, after a car accident that left him with amnesia, Ahmed returns to his village, where nothing seems familiar to him: neither his wife nor his children. His youngest son, frightened by Ahmed’s bandaged face, is deeply afraid of him.
Spring Came on Laughing(2024)
Drama
Four tales unfold during the Spring, a season notorious for its cruel nature, unearthing secrets, anger, sorrows, and hidden tears parmi seemingly joyful laughter.
Flana(2025)
Documentary
Zahraa returns to her childhood home in Baghdad, haunted by the disappearance of her friend Noor twenty years ago. During her search, she meets Laila (22) at the same shelter where Noor was last seen. Zahraa discovers that many girls are abandoned by their mothers due to gender-based violence. She realizes how the war on Iraq reinforced patriarchal systems, compelling mothers to leave their baby daughters behind in a society that rejects them.
Cotton Queen(2025)
Drama
In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, teenage Nafisa is raised on heroic tales of battling British colonizers told by her grandmother, the village matriarch Al-Sit. But when a young businessman arrives from abroad with a new development plan and genetically engineered cotton, Nafisa becomes the center of a power play to determine the future of the village. Awakening to her own strength, Nafisa sets out to save the cotton fields – and herself. Neither she nor her community will ever be the same again.
Simsim(2025)
Drama
To break free from a forced marriage, Simsim hunts for her own replacement, but what she finds instead is her true self.
The Lions by the River Tigris(2025)
Documentary
In Mosul, a city devastated during the battle for liberation from the Islamic State, the fight to heal and preserve its identity, culture, and art is not over. Three men refuse to let Mosul remain in ruins. A city with 8,000 years of history, struggling to reclaim its soul through those who refuse to let it fade into oblivion.