The Culture Commission of the PhD Students Association of the Jagiellonian University invites you to participate in the latest edition of the Doctoral Students' Film Club, which will take place on Thursday May 13th. This time, we will watch Arab Blues (in French and Arabic with Polish subtitles).
The film will be sent to you for free on the E-Kino Pod Baranami online Platform(please start an account if you have not yet done so). Watching the film will be preceded by a discussion on MS Teams at 6:00 PM; the film will be followed by a discussion in the same place. We ask all who are interested to send a message with the email address on which you have established your E-Kino Pod Baranami account to filip.mazurczak@doctoral.uj.edu.pl to 5:00 PM on Thursday May 13th at the latest.
Arab Blues, France, 2019, dir. Manele Labidi
Miami Film Festival 2020: Knight Marimbas Award (nomination)
Palm Springs International Film Festival 2020: Jury Prize (nomination)
Stockholm Film Festival 2019: Best Film (nomination)
East or West, home is best? The comedy Arab Blues reminds us that returning to where we are from is not always easy. That is the case with Selma, who was brought up in France and has decided to return to Tunisia in order to open her psychoanalysis clinic. After her arrival, however, she learns that not only no one was waiting for her but that in fact her profession and lifestyle seems at least suspicious to her closest relatives. Cultural differences lead to a series of mistakes and misunderstandings, which Manele Labidi presents with disarming humor in her directorial debut.
The independent, single Selma, who lives according to her own principles, is a thorn in the side of her conservative family and the local authorities. She moves across the streets, corridors, and rooms clad in her favorite jeans and with a cigarette in her mouth, discovering both the absurdity of local legislation and her own identity along the way. The charisma, charm, and on-screen magnetism of the main actress Golshifteh Farahani (who starred in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson as well as Ashgar Farhadi's About Elly) make us root for the psychoanalyst's crazy plans as well as her patients who, having been brought up in an oppressive culture, finally admit they have the right to depression, anxiety, and be who they truly are.
This sunny, luminous comedy filled with juicy color directed by Manele Labidi is about the universal conflicts of tradition and modernity as well as the collective and the individual.Tunisia presented in Arab Blues is recovering after the Arab Spring and needs collective therapy like never before. This film underlines in a warm, lighthearted, and joking tone that there can be no political revolutions without a social revolt: against one’s parents, school, politicians, and suffocating, strict rules. It also reminds us that humor has always been the best therapy.
This is the link to the team on Microsoft Teams: