Twin Cities Arab Film Festival celebrates its 20th event
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The Twin Cities Arab Film Fest opened Wednesday evening for its twentieth edition. This year’s theme is “Looking Forward, Looking Back,” which looks back at Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) filmmaking. It also looks at the films of past festivals.
Friday night, there will be a retrospective of short films from Lebanese filmmaker Hadi Moussally, whose work often explores the experience of being Arab and queer. Moussally left Lebanon in 2005 and now splits his time between France and Barcelona.
“Before I left, it was horrible,” Moussally told MPR’s All Things Considered. “There was some underground things happening, but [it was] horrible. But honestly, comparing it to other countries, [it’s] less [horrible]. I come from Tripoli, from north of Lebanon, and it's very traditional, conservative and everything, so I only had bad representation.”
“And it changed so much today,” he said of the social landscape in Lebanon. “For example, today there's so many drag shows [and] queer parties. I'm not going to say it's a perfect place to be, because everything is still in between. You can be yourself, but not really.”
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Moussally says his experience — both in Lebanon and emigrating to France — informed his filmmaking journey.
“It’s more about loving yourself and who you are and not being ashamed of who you are, and be grateful for that instead of hiding it to please other people,” he said of trying to “integrate” when he moved to France. “Because at the end, people will judge you anyway. So do whatever you want, and be happy.”
Moussally’s retrospective will cover films made since 2020, when he became more of a presence in front of the camera as well as behind it. He says the big message he wants festival-goers to take away from his films is “representation.”
“That's very important to see that queer Arabs exist, because people don't think that we exist or we just like being oppressed all the time.”
“We need to remind people that we are Arab, we are queer and we are queer Arab, and we exist. This is very important. We need to show how we live, and we need to see how the other people are living to be able to coexist and find a better world that we can live in.”
Aside from Friday’s film retrospective, Moussally will host an event Saturday night as his queer drag queen persona, Salma Zahore.
