by Rebecca Romani

April 3, 2026

After a successful opening weekend, the San Diego Arab Film Festival (SDAFF) continues its screenings the weekend of April 17-19. The festival screening committee has worked hard to create a compelling line up that features some of the top films produced in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) in recent years, including Oscar contenders for Best Foreign Film.

MENA film seldom acquires US distribution deals, and the SDAFF is an excellent opportunity to see films that explore difficult historical moments, traditional life, and current social issues.

The SDAFF was established to open a window on a region and culture that is largely misrepresented and misunderstood in the US despite numerous US military forays into the countries there.

This year’s festival features several excellent Palestinian films which have earned critical recognition in international film festivals, as well as some strikingly excellent short films.

Many of the films being screened are by filmmakers who have previously shown at the festival, and feature some of the Arab film world’s most acclaimed actors, including the Bakris – Saleh, the late Mohammed, and Ziad, who play major roles in Palestinian films, from acting to directing to production.

PLEASE NOTE:  Homemade traditional Arab food is available to purchase and enjoy between screenings.

Also, a reminder, some of the features may be very popular and sell out. You are advised to purchase a ticket online to assure a seat.

Friday, April 17:

The second weekend of screenings at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, starts April 17 with the stunning drama, All That’s Left of You, by Chirien Dabis, a Palestinian American actress, director , producer, and screen writer. All That’s Left of You is her third feature and was submitted as Jordan’s entry for Best International Film at the Oscars.

Several of Dabis’ films have screened at the SDAFF, including the charming dramatic comedy about culture and reconciliation, May in the Summer.

Like many of the films in this year’s program, All That’s Left features several members of the Bakri family.

All That’s Left of You is a sweeping generational look at the conditions of occupation and how they wound generations on down from 1948 to the first Intifada in 1988, to 2022 and situations that continue to this day. Its beautiful character and location studies paint a compelling line up of Palestinian society under substantial stress that trickles down through the culture, sparing no one.

Dabis’ vignettes create a devastating picture of small and large cruelties which play out in various forms over the years. A father humiliated in front of his son by the IDF, the son, later caught up in dangerous games of resistance, and the parents, finally able to exercise their dignity and will over the dead body of their son after a nightmare excursion through the excruciating labyrinth which is health care for Israeli Arabs.

Their final hurdle, how to deal with the donation of their son’s organs, will leave you in shock as issues of ethics of donation such as how will the recipient live their life forward from the transplant, and how the family finds resolution in their grief, will shake you.

Dabis has clearly gone out on a limb for this film. Her casting is impeccable. Again, the Palestinian acting dynasty, the Bakris, masterfully occupy major roles. But the film is also a memorial of sorts to Mohammed Bakri, who plays the patriarch of the family, Sharif, when older. All That’s Left Of You is Mohammed Bakri’s last film, and his performance anchors the story as it moves along its decade’s long trajectory. Bakri passed in December 2025, at 72, of heart disease.

Dabis has, not surprisingly, cast herself in the role of the mother, Hanan, whose strength carries the family through the Intifada and the excruciating pain of deciding what to do with her deceased son’s organs.

Dabis does a fine job of self-directing, always remaining loyal to her character. She has honed this skill over several fine films, notably May in the Summer (2013).

Dabis’ work has been seen at the SDAFF before, notably May in the Summer and the Palestinian family drama, The Villa Touma (2014).

But Dabis takes even more risks. By bringing the idea of organ donation to the fore, she also raises the specter of past and present allegations of Israeli organ harvesting from Palestinian prisoners. She also poses an interesting ethical issue- can one dictate what the recipient does after receiving the donation? Hanan (Dabis), finds herself in a very difficult situation vis-à-vis one of the recipients. Dabis treats this theme with compassion and balance, allowing room for compassion for both the grieving mother and the relieved recipient, a young man who may or may not be joining the IDF- the same entity that killed Hanan’s son.

All That’s Left Of You is a scathing commentary on life under occupation that is tough to watch in some places but notable for what it says about memory, family ties, and the tenderness that endures.

Saturday, April 18:

Hind Under Siege is a short film that works with the phone call to the Red Crescent made by 6-year-old Hind Rajab, as she hid in her family’s car, trapped by the IDF, which had just killed most of the other passengers.

What distinguishes this short from the feature, The Voice of Hind Rajab, is that it focuses on the compassion and kindness of the Red Cross workers who tried to help and bear witness to one of the most moving tragedies of the Israeli attack on Gaza.

The soundtrack is excruciating but the film is worthy of attention.

If I Must Die is an extraordinary, animated piece by artist Chris Daley who believes that creating art is speaking truth to power. Daley has used his art to animate the iconic poem, “If I Must Die,” by writer, poet and translator Dr. Refaat Alareer, who died in an Israeli airstrike in December 2023, along with members of his family. His poem, which became famous posthumously, has been read in collective readings across the world, offering a symbol of hope in the image of a kite. One of the poem’s enduring strengths is to be able to transform loss and marginalization into resistance. Which may be one of the reasons it spoke to so many.

Daley has said that he was inspired by a painting by Vincent Valdez for his main character, and sampled audio from the Romanian collective, justwondering, who created their own audio response to the poem.

The video is astonishing simple and yet beautifully embodies the anguish and longing in a poem that has resonated with people on a global scale.

As if the war in Gaza were not monstrous enough, there is an unfolding human catastrophe in Sudan in northeast Africa. Coveted by strong men and foreign powers as early as the Kingdoms of Egypt, rocked by coups and famine in the 20-21^st centuries, Sudan is a very old region with an ethnically mixed population- an Arabic speaking population mostly in the North and a predominantly English-speaking Black population. In the South. Since 2023, a humanitarian crisis and civil war has threatened civilians, devastating crops, and decimating livestock. Sudan, Remember Us, featuring the work of young artivists (artists whose work is part of their activism) and the voice of a Sudanese poet, is a poetic documentary on how the voices of the Sudanese revolution struggle with realities of militias behind the coups and political violence.

The last screening block returns to Gaza and gives voice to Lebanon. The documentary, Worse than Nuking asks a question that has been unaddressed for much of the war on Gaza. If everyone is under siege, how do healthcare workers, especially women, take care of their patients and their own families? The film follows Dr Fedaa Alnady as she tries to do just that- keep her four children safe while providing care for her pediatric patients at Nasser Medical Complex in the Gaza Strip. Once the largest hospital in Gaza, the Complex became the last functioning hospital in the area, and in 2024, with the IDF attacks, ceased to function all together, losing a number of patients.

Lebanon, currently under siege by Israel, is not without its stories. The feature, A Sad And Beautiful World, director Cyril Aris’ first feature, lightens the mood with its romantic and wise comedy of three decades in the lives of childhood friends, Nino and Yasmina, that play out like metaphors against the complicated backdrop of Beirut. Lensed by the talented Joe Saade who has a keen eye for color and architecture, the film has been praised for its use of archival footage and portrait of Beirut.

How Nino and Yasmina, like Beirut itself, solve the age-old question of stay or go, may surprise you.

Sunday, April 19:

The last day of the festival holds some interesting surprises. The first screening includes shorts from Iran and Iraq while the second screening includes work from Yemen and Morocco.

Dance! is a surreal piece from Iranian director Poorya Delgham. Its inclusion is both eerily prescient and unsettling. Masterfully shot in black and white as well as color, and edited, it is probably, outside of YouTube, one of the rare horror films about Gaza. Which raises an interesting issue. What does a horror film about what is itself an utter horror show- the Israeli war in Gaza, have to tell us about the situation?  A lot, it seems. The story hinges on an IDF officer who hides out in an empty Palestinian house in order to avoid patrol. Turns out, he is not alone.

Delgham carefully references certain videos posted by IDF soldiers on social media to magnify the horror. The camera reveals a house in disarray, its contents in shreds from the IDF searches.

Later we see a child’s doll strung up in a noose hanging from the ceiling, also a reference to an IDF video on YouTube. Eventually the soldier finds the living room and enters, almost like a groom, expecting a welcome. But instead of a welcome, to his horror, he is faced by the ghosts of the family the IDF killed as well as a version of himself, suggesting that the souls of his victims will follow him.

On a lighter note, pastry is the word in The President’s Cake, from Iraq. Shot with non-actors, the film won several awards at Cannes.

The film follows Lamia, a girl who lives in the historic marshes in Iraq during the time of Saddam. For Lamia, everything starts to get complicated when she is selected to make the obligatory birthday cake for Saddam. But with what? As a girl from a poor Marsh family, her resources are limited. If she refuses, she and/or her family could be imprisoned. Lamia tries to sell her grandfather’s watch so she can go to the city to get what she needs. But will her grandfather’s watch save her?

Second screening

The second screening includes several unexpected films, one each from Yemen and Morocco.

From Yemen comes the touching documentary, The Pail.  The documentary follows Hajj Abdullah, who has spent over 60 years restoring the ancient architecture of his beloved Sanaa. Sanaa is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. It’s unique architecture- mud brick multiple story buildings- is decorated with stained glass windows and designs in white paint that set off the reddish mud. Many of these structures are 100’s if not thousands of years old.  Unfortunately, some are in danger because of bombings, and other hostilities in the region and Hajj Abdullah has made it his life’s mission to preserve these UNESCO heritage buildings.

Calle Malaga, by Maryam Touzani, is Touzani’s love letter to her hometown, the Moroccan port city of Tangier, in Morocco. Touzani turns her observant eye to the life of the fiercely independent María Angeles, living in her childhood home in the Spanish quarter of Tangier, the city of her birth. María is delighted to see her daughter Clara when she comes for a visit, but Clara is coming with a mission. Newly divorced, she comes to claim the house her father left her and in which her mother lives, and to sell it to shore up her own finances.

Ever resourceful, the buoyant María finds a way to buy back her things that her daughter sold to an antique dealer. And as she turns to the neighborhood for help, she finds an unexpected romance in the midst of chaos.

Touzani, the wife of Moroccan filmmaker, Nabil Ayouch, has a special way with characters who are slightly outside of the mainstream. Festival goers might remember her feature, The Blue Caftan, about a gay Moroccan tailor who makes women’s caftans (traditional dresses), or her later feature, Casablanca Beats, about teens working to put on a rap concert. Calle Malaga is Touzani’s Spanish language debut.

The film has received praise for both its casting and its soundtrack. Carmen Maura (Maria Angeles), a veteran of Spanish Cinema, has also starred in Almodóvar’s films and brings a lightness and charm to her portrayal of the beleaguered Maria Angeles.