Dubai Film Market

Hiyam, a young factory worker, lives in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood, along with her co-workers. She is clearly under the spell of Salah, the factory's new supervisor. Believing that love can transcend their class differences, Hiyam relentlessly pursues a dream of the pair being together. However, when a pregnancy test is discovered in the factory premises, her immediate family and close friends accuse her of sinning. Hiyam decides not to defend herself and pays an enormous price in a society that fails to accept her.

Tunisia, before the revolution. A man on a motorbike, razor blade in hand, prowls the streets of Tunis slashing women's buttocks. They call him The Challat, aka "The Blade", and the mere mention of his name provokes fascination and terror. Is he a lone criminal, an urban legend, or could he be the creation of a political group or religious fanatics? 10 years later, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, a stubborn young female director sets out on an investigation to unravel the mystery and discover the true Challat of Tunis...

When a forty-year-old divorced father discovers that he needs to undergo an operation, which he can not afford, within the next 4 days, he finds himself forced to deal with the life he isolated himself from for the longest time.

Bahoz is 19 years old and lives surrounded by nature and beautiful landscapes. Every day, he goes to the mountains to hunt although he catches very little. But today will be the day that will change his life forever.

Zelal is a documentary that's an invitation to delve into the world of psychiatry and "madness" in Egypt. It meets the ordinary madmen and women banished to mental institutions by Egyptian society and offers more than just a journey into their world of shadows. The hospitals end up becoming the only place patients can conceive, not because they are truly "crazy", but because they fear the outside world. The film forces viewers to put their own preconceptions and interpretations to the test, reminding us that freedom is precarious in a society that does not tolerate any differences.

After being forced to leave his country three times, a Lebanese film director traces his roots and analyzes key moments of the nation's history.

Line of sight is the story of LAILA, a woman in her early twenties who has to revisit the choices she made in her life after an encounter with a car thief, who had made unusual choices himself.

During the Algerian war, the road to Beni Boussaid on the Morocco-Algeria border is obstructed by the Morice line, a 430-mile long belt that is electrified and heavily mined. Moussa, a Moroccan friend of the revolution, helps refugees across the mountains. However, he must go through Beni Boussaid when he finds out that the path he usually takes is no longer safe. Hans, a Communist militant of the GDR, loses a leg on the way, while trying to remove a mine from a passageway. Normally, the wounded and sick are put to rest, but Hans is not a Muslim and cannot be a martyr.

Sara grew up in Yemen to a Yemeni father and a Scottish mother, and at age 17, finally decided to move to Scotland. Ten years later – 2011 – Sara returns to Yemen as a different person, geared up to face the home of her past and reconnect with her long-severed roots. But against all personal expectations, she returns to find her family and country teetering on the brink of a revolution.

Her journey that begins as a personal story, ends up being the story of other women who struggle to realize their dreams in a modern society.