Arab women conquer Eye

A special film programme opens at Eye on 5 June: Where do we go now? Arab women behind the camera. Those who think of the Middle East and North Africa may think of conflicts and IS, perhaps of the origin of algebra, but probably not to women filmmakers. Yet they are rising considerably.

If in 1994 Les Silences du Palais by Moufida Tlatli was still a dyke-breaker, now there are enough makers to make a fine festival.

The opening is immediately very special: I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced by Yemeni Khadija Al-Salami will be screened in the director's presence. It is her first feature film, based on the true story of a 10-year-old girl married off to a 20-year-old man. She refuses to resign herself to her fate of violence, rape and exploitation and chooses her own path. As does the director, by the way, who, according to her wikipedia page, was married off at 11. Al-Salami is the first female filmmaker in Yemen, in a country with a minuscule film culture.

Lebanon is best represented with four films. The film that gave the festival its title is also from here. Where do we go from here? Is Nadina Labaki's film about religious tensions in a village in an unnamed country. The Muslims and Christians are at each other's throats but their wives concoct trick after trick to stop the fighting. In the end, they come up with a kind of reverse Lysistrata.

More special and urgent is Je Suis le Peuple by Egyptian documentary filmmaker Anna Rousillon. Whereas all the attention in 2011 was on Tahrir Square in Cairo, Rousillon shifted her focus to the countryside: how did people there, glued to the TV, experience the revolution?

Guest curator Ludmilla Cvikova worked at the Doha Film Institute in Qatar as head of programming for several pre-years. In her words, Arab women's cinema is "Powerful, poignant, vital and provocative". In a rich programme of short films, feature films and documentaries, 7 filmmakers visiting the festival and deepening with debate and interviews, perhaps the word multifaceted could be added.

Enquiries and booking: Eye.