LES CHENILLES + CASABLANCA - ALFILM Arab Film Festival Berlin

In the organizer's words:

Double Feature: Casablanca & Les Chenilles

Les Chenilles يرقة

Fiction, directors: Michelle Keserwany & Noel Keserwany, Lebanon/France, 2022, 30 min., Arab./Fr. with En. ST

Asma and Sarah, two women originally from the Levant, end up working in the same restaurant in Lyon. Both bear the weight of a home they were forced to leave behind. Initially cautious, they discover a common thread that binds them - one that dates back to when the Silk Road connected Lyon to their home countries.

Casablanca

Documentary, director: Adriano Valerio, France/Italy 2023, 63 min., Arab./It./Fr. with En. ST

Fouad, a Moroccan clandestine living in Italy for years awaiting medical treatment, and Daniela, a former drug-addict from Apulia's upper middle-class, find each other by chance in Umbria. The meeting is the beginning of a special bond that helps them heal, both claiming without any hesitation, they saved each other's life. But Fouad's feeling of not belonging and the interminable waiting for a visa are pushing him to the brink: will he stay in Umbria or go back to Casablanca, even if it means never to return? The film, Valerio's debut feature-length documentary, was shown in the Giornate degli Autori section of the Venice Film Festival in 2023. According to director Adriano Valerio: "Casablanca is a love story between two people who have built an atypical family, an intimacy in which each manages, thanks to the other, to free themselves from society's exclusion".

In cooperation with the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO).