Having started in 2007, Images From the East (IFE) is now on its second edition, bringing once again to São Paulo some of the latest young filmmakers' productions, from throughout Arab and Islamic countries. The films here presented are usually are not shown in Brazil, or in Latin America in general. In March 2007, the first edition of IFE was produced, with the collaboration of the Municipality of São Paulo, and of the Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC, Iran). Showing 27 films, among short and feature, fiction, animation, and documentaries, focused on three countries: Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran. In 2008, IFE is screening 42 films, from the same countries, plus Siria, Jordan and Pakistan.

Our mission is to promoting knowledge and comprehension regarding people who are typically stigmatized, essentialized, presented as strange, exotic, or simply incomprehensible

'others', and whose transformation into mere caricatures of their rich and diverse realities has often enough accompanied and even preceded wars against them. The images we show come directly from film centers, festivals, and individuals, in these regions, usually associated to what one would call the 'East'.

Institute for Arab Culture

Al Nakba , which in Arabic means ‘the catastrophe’, is how Palestinians refer to the memory of the massacre and expulsion from their lands, plantations, and homes in 1948. It is also the term used by the Israeli revisionists, the so-called new historiography, composed of researchers among whose objectives is to recover the past, searching to build a common understanding of what happened in Palestine in the year 1948, and what happens until today.

The Palestinian films here presented, in the framework of the 60 years of the Nakba, are not the lamentations of a people-victim. They do not judge, least condemn. But show tangible images, reflections of Palestinian life today. As once stated by Edward Said, it is important that both Palestinians and Israelis have a clear and common understanding of what happened in 1948. This is the only way to come closer to finding a just solution to a tragic conflict. It is important to acknowledge reality.

Arlene E. Clemesha

Curta iraniano, A Palavra.

If you ask me about my feeling of being born in the middle-east, I’d answer it was an geographical obligation! , but if you ask me why I am still living and working there , I’d rather answer that as a filmmaker ,I don’t want to be far from the most important stories of our time, happening in front of our eyes every day.

Images From the East (IFE) celebrates it’s second edition this year, with the aim of bringing you some of these important stories from different countries of the region: from Iran to Palestine, from Syria to Lebanon.

Far from what you hear and see of these countries in the medias , a wide range of different subjects ,themes and styles are presented in the films selected this year.

Young , energetic and talented directors of these films, have documented not only the reality of their societies, but also expressed and commented about what is behind the daily life realities.

While in Iranian films ,the themes like love ,death and solitude are dealt directly by filmmakers to discover the deeper layers of a complex society –rarely seen before -,Arab films provide us the new retrospectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict ,and how the third generation of Palestinian refugees face this old scar .

We do believe that IFE offers the Brazilian audience the essence of the reality and culture of the middle-east ,and we hope that these films help them to be informed and engaged about the changes of our time.

Massoud BAKHSHI, Filmmaker
Curadoria, Imagens do Oriente
(Images From the East, IFE)