Hopes for the Middle East Now through films and culture in Florence

_questo festival ripudia la guerra_

Middle East Now Festival will open its 16th edition in Florence from October 7th to 12th with a wide range of events scheduled to take place, including cinema, documentaries, art, exhibitions, theater, music, food, meetings, and cultural projects around the 2025 theme: Radical Imagination.  The power of images, the power of dialogue and culinary culture are set to engage audiences in Florence, looking for new grounds of understanding. Middle East Now will bring to Florence the energy, the strength, the creativity and the hope of so many directors, artists, and professionals who, despite everything are continuing to work and are still looking at the future with hope.

The festival edition doesn’t just showcase and explore the reality of the Middle East. It explores the radical potential of image-making as a site of imagination — and as such, the festival cultivates a space where new visions of this world can be called upon and long-held misrepresentations dismantled. The theme Radical Imagination points out filmmaking as a political battleground for social imaginaries — one that mobilizes audiences’ imagination to counter stories of injustice, vilification, and colonial erasure.  The featured artists challenge us to see the material world, one another, and ourselves in new and different ways. Radical imagination does not merely critique what exists — it offers a view of what could be. It awakens possibility in the face of despair and offers challenge instead of collapse.

A week of films and documentaries, exhibitions, events, presentations, talks, theater performances, music, and culinary events. Over 35 premieres, for journeys to Afghanistan, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Gaza and Palestine opening night:
Between Harsh Reality and Radical Imagination
Starting with the opening film on Tuesday, October 7, at 9:00 PM at Cinema La Compagnia – Yalla Parkour by Palestinian director Abeer Zuaiter who will be present at the Festival to meet the audience and discuss her latest work. From Ground Zero, the project launched in 2024 by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, continues in 2025 to give voice to the Gaza Strip, with young Palestinian filmmakers called upon to find a personal perspective and style to recount the daily horrors of war and the need to rediscover hope.

Cinema News: AFGHANISTAN
Four years after the much-discussed American withdrawal, Afghanistan has disappeared from our news, and meanwhile the country has plunged into a profound economic and humanitarian crisis. Middle East Now dedicates a Focus to it.

_ Kabul Between Prayers by Aboozar Amini (Festival Closing Film, Sunday, October 12, 9:00pm), Cinema La Compagnia) takes us on a personal journey between the desire for life and death, involving adults and children. At the center of the story is Samim, a devoted soldier of the Taliban’s ideology confronted daily between the alluring promises of martyrdom and the mundanity of his daily existence as a husband and farmer. Samim’s 14-year-old younger brother, Rafi, idolises his elder sibling as he navigates the confusion of adolescence, leaving behind playfulness to enter a world shaped by decades of military intervention and the resulting radicalisation.
“When Afghanistan fell back under total Taliban control, my generation was extremely disillusioned by the Western world. Now a change can only come from the Afghans, and in this sense I have a certain hope, because there is a young generation trying to act, to the extent they are allowed, for the good of their country.”.

_ The Last Ambassador
Natalie Halla’s The Last Ambassador (Saturday, October 11, 6:00pm, Cinema La Compagnia) takes us on a journey through the daily life of Afghan Ambassador to Vienna, Manizha Bakhtari, who, despite financial and logistical isolation, resolutely challenges the Taliban regime and continues to fight for the rights of Afghan women and girls. Her motto is “Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice.”

World Premiere: VOICES FROM BAMYAN
Voices from Bamyan by Studio Azzurro and LaGeS University of Florence (Friday, October 10, 7:00pm, Cinema La Compagnia) is a work that offers a unique perspectives on the social and territorial transformations that have occurred in Bamyan, Afghanistan, from the fall of the first Taliban regime until today. Produced by the renowned Milanese artistic research group Studio Azzurro together with the Social Geography Laboratory of the University of Florence.

CULINARY ART!
And along with the power of images and dialogue, Middle East Now believes in the power of culinary culture: food is a powerful tool for expressing identity and a channel for exchange between different cultures.

SAMI TAMIMI
The Palestinian chef is special guest
Celebrated British–Palestinian chef and author Sami Tamimi is special guest with his first solo cookbook Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from My Palestine. For Tamimi preparing the food of his homeland is an act of resilience and keeping his culture alive. At the festival, in addition to presenting his latest book (Saturday, October 11, 7:30pm, Cinema La Compagnia), he will be the protagonist of a special cooking workshop at the Scuola Cordon Bleu. _ Sunday, October 12, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM, (Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts School – Via Giuseppe Giusti 7), Cooking workshop with reservations required: info@middleastnow.it – T. 338.9868969 – 348.3821858

SPECIAL PARTICIPATION:  PenPalestine, Postcards designed by artists from around the world for Palestine

PenPalestine prints postcards designed by artists from around the world in solidarity with Palestine. Founded in 2023, the initial idea was to send postcards to Gaza, where unfortunately they would never arrive. The hope is that one day they will arrive, but in the meantime, it is possible to raise awareness about the genocide by sending them far and wide, supporting Palestinians through the creativity of a global collective of artists. Postcards are the focus of an installation at Cinema La Compagnia, curated by Archivio Personale, and can be purchased to raise funds for medical organizations working in Gaza.
Pen Palestine founder Clara Teixeira Hancock will be in Florence for the festival to discuss her project.

The image of Middle East Now 2025
A woman carrying a slice of watermelon on her shoulders. The red of passion, the green of hope, and the white of innocence, a fruit that grows even in the world’s most difficult places, resisting heat and thirst, and proving that nature never gives up.
The image for this edition of the festival is also part of the PenPalestine project and was created by illustrator Emma Gascó (@emmagasco). It’s an image that will accompany us throughout the festival in many different ways. Make it yours now!

For Middle East Now Film Festival 2025 updates directly on the here website