Qantara.de - Dialog mit der islamischen Welt

Afia Nathaniel's first full-length feature film "Dukhtar", has been enjoying a great deal of success on the international festival circuit – and causing quite a stir in her home country too. By Marian BrehmerMore

In ″The Angels Die″, released this August, the perils of boxing intersect with the precarious arena of colonial politics. Broached with the reflections of a convicted fighter awaiting the guillotine, celebrated Algerian-Francophone author Yasmina Khadra brings to life a psychological exploration of Algeria′s 20th century interwar period. By Sherif DhaimishMore

Political theatre from the Arab world five years after the Arabellion: from a country in a permanent vegetative state comes the piece "While I Was Waiting" by the Syrian playwright Mohammad Al Attar. And in "Zig Zig," an Egyptian theatre group headed by Laila Soliman tells the tale of a gang rape. By Susanne SchandaMore

30 August 2016 marks the tenth anniversary of Naguib Mahfouz′ death. Widely regarded as the father of the Arab novel, the Egyptian author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988: ″through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous″. A volume of his early non-fiction work has recently been published. Marcia Lynx Qualey gives her impressionsMore

You don′t expect a film about seven young women getting together for a hen-party the night before a wedding to turn out to be a moving political statement concerning equal rights and sexual freedom. But the Indian film ″Angry Indian Goddesses″ is exactly that: a hilarious and entertaining story about seven girls and, at the same time, a bold and loud outcry against sexual harassment and rape – still all too common in India. By Sheila MysorekarMore

With the comprehensive coverage devoted to the latest events in and around Aleppo, the war in Syria is once again astoundingly present in Germany and its media. The urgency of the conflict can be felt most strongly at the moment in Berlin, where the photographer Kai Wiedenhofer has posted his images of the region on the remains of the Berlin Wall. By Felix Koltermann

More

The Islamist hardliners in Iran see themselves as a bulwark against the cultural influence of the West; their goal is to create an authentically Islamic culture. But what does that mean for things like architecture? Aesthetic observations by Ulrich von Schwerin in IranMore

In ″Queens of Syria″, ancient Greek tales of loss and dislocation in conflict echo through to the contemporary realities of Syrian women refugees, whose experiences of war and exile have often been ignoredMore

The film "Raving Iran" tells the story of the Iranian DJ combo "Blade & Beard". Anoosh and Arash produce house music and organise wild parties in Tehran and other more isolated locations in Iran. By Rene WildangelMore