Gaze on Amman International Film Festival – Awal Film
As a festival dedicated to debut cinematic works, the Amman International Film Festival is considered a platform for creative voices to present their opening visual achievement. Supporting new cinematic voices is a special feature of the Jordanian International Festival, which has become a civilised face for the country.
A World Unscripted, the theme of the festival, represents a juxtaposition of imagination and reality. In it, the truth, as told in films, becomes an act of intellectual resistance that reflects the current moment in Gaza, where justice is absent, and where steadfastness collides with injustice in an existential struggle that places everything on the brink of uncertainty after humanity has been pushed aside. Hence, the themes of identity formation, self-discovery, self-search, refuge through migration, and the return of memories of family life experiences are a clear and striking feature, as a social reflection of the political event driven by the ferocity of brutal weapons in many of the films selected within the various festival sections, which totaled 62 films from 23 countries.
Ireland was the country of honour for the festival, the screening of a selection of distinguished Irish films, and the hosting of the renowned director Jim Sheridan, are a testament to the cultural commonalities and solidarity between the Irish and Palestinian struggles revolving around resistance, identity, and memory.
This is the third consecutive year that the FIPRESCI Award, presented to the best Arab feature-length documentary, has been awarded at the festival. The award allowed the FIPRESCI jury to view seven films covering diverse topics. These included high school students in Jordan experiencing the details of their lives amid regional tensions and their differing visions of the relationship with school and studying, as a young generation that views education differently from its administrators and teachers in Mother of Schools (أم المدارس,2025). They also explored the search for self amid the ghosts of a collapsing world and the violent geopolitical changes in the Middle East, when Bouba Beauty Salon in downtown Beirut emerged as an outlet for fragile souls seeking self-reflection through cosmetic surgery. Thus, between seriousness and humor, A Frown Gone Mad (فتنة في الحاجبين,2024) appeared with a contemporary exoticism, though only occasionally it seemed striking. In Time Out 22 (وقت مستقطع 22, 2025), the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals took us to explore the overwhelming space of human emotion, where Syrians can express their humanity after it had been marginalised by the brutal war and become a luxury amid the vortex of violence by which the country has been engulfed. In another form of self-defence, the film Tell Them About Us (إحكيلهم عنا , 2024) seeks to immerse itself in creativity, enabling immigrant girls from the Middle East to Germany to embody their hopes and ambitions by pursuing a variety of artistic, cultural, and life activities in search of a more comprehensive and deeply rooted human identity.
What is truly remarkable is the emergence of subjective narratives, with a camera penetrating the walls of homes to reveal the hidden family secrets in intimate personal stories, as a facade for the volatile social, political, and economic reality of Arab countries, and the reflection of these changes on the psychological reality of the characters appearing in the films. This is what films like (Y)our Mother (Les Miennes) by Moroccan director Samira El Mouzghibati share, the emotionally moving narrative documents the personal experiences of the director’s family members, and the contrasting perspectives between the mother and her daughters at a moment of candor, revealing the ebb and flow of their perspectives. The echo of social transformations is evident as the film unfolds over the years, demonstrating that environment is integral to shaping the psychological and behavioral make-up of the human individual. This is the difference between growing up in rural Morocco for the mother and growing up in Belgium for the daughters. In the same context, we can experience intimacy and familiarity through a camera well-positioned to penetrate daily life and the ups and downs of the close emotional relationship between a daughter and her father in the film We Are Inside (نحن في الداخل, 2024) by director Farah Qassem. After years abroad, Qassem returns to her homeland, specifically the city of Tripoli, to care for her elderly father. She finds herself not only relocated but also having to respond to and enter her father’s world, steeped in classicism and viewing things through the nature of his poetry, far removed from contemporary trends. This is reflected in the delightful intersection of opinions between the daughter and her father, where humor and emotional growth are present in the strengthening of the bond between them, all of which echoes the social and political fluctuations in the city and the country as a whole.
However, the FIPRESCI jury settled, with by a small margin concerning details related to the overall cinematic structure, on selecting Abo Zaabal 89 (أبو زعبل 89, 2024) to win the FIPRESCI Prize at the 6th Amman International Film Festival. The film tells the story of an Egyptian family, through which director Bassam Mortada recounts decades of the country’s history, marked by political, economic, and social upheavals. Mortada seeks to convey the impressions and images that linger in the mind of a five-year-old child who witnessed his father’s arrest and imprisonment for his political activism, for which he paid a heavy price. This is reflected in his mother, who is forced to confront her husband’s absence and the psychological trauma that led to his separation and emigration from the country, before returning at the behest of a son who misses his father’s affection. Abo Zaabal 89 skillfully uses archival material and cinematic concepts, such as animation, to reveal the inner lives of people who have suffered excruciating pain. The director seeks to reveal much that was hidden in order to free himself from the demons of the past, in an emotional response to the soul’s discourse on healing. The film is a promising example of the potential of documentary cinema to help individuals in Arab societies deal with their traumas and open paths to a better future and life growth.
By Ali Alyasery
Edited by Amber Wilkinson
@FIPRESCI2025