Tag: mosque

Sky Peals

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 8 August 2024
No Comments on Sky Peals
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Director – Moin Hussain – 2023 – UK – Cert. 12a – 91m

****

When his estranged father dies after leaving him an answering machine message, a motorway service station employee starts to question the identity of his father and, by extension, of himself – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 9th

Adam (Faraz Ayub) receives an answerphone message from his father Hassan (Jeff Mirza) who he’s not seen for years; his father hasn’t much time left, is currently near Adam’s home and wants to meet up and talk. Like the answerphone message left by her soon-to-be deceased husband for the heroine of After Love (Aleem Khan, 2020) – is a British subgenre emerging here with Muslims and bereavement? – the recording plays on Adam’s mind at his workplace, the Sky Peals motorway service station, where he does the night shift preparing burgers in the kitchen and keeps himself pretty much to himself. He complains to his superior that the system isn’t working and customers aren’t getting served their orders, but the old manager has left, and the new one doesn’t start ’til Monday. Meanwhile, people aren’t getting their orders.

The police find a dead body in a car in the service station car park.… Read the rest

Tags answering machine, answering machine message, bereavement, bridge, British, Britishness, burgers, car, car park, CCTV, Claire Rushbrook, co-worker, connect, cultural heritage, dead body, death, degraded image, disappear, dislocation, disorientation, employee, estate agent, estranged, ethnic, Faraz Ayub, father, fish-out-of-water, funeral, furniture, glitch, greeter, home, home life, house clearance, identity, indoor bridge, investigation, Islam, isolation, Jeff Mirza, kitchen, loss, manager, Moin Hussain, mosque, mothers and sons, motorway, motorway service station, move out, mundane, Muslim, Natalie Gavin, new manager, new partner, night shift, orders, Pakistani, pointless, post-industrialisation, prospective house buyers, queues, recoding, recording, relationship, relationship breakup, sell a house, selling off, Simon Nagra, single parent mum, Steve Oram, suit and tie, traditional Islamic garb, UK, uncle, vanish, white British, work social, workplace, Yorkshire

Features Live Action Movies

Cairo Conspiracy,
(original title:
Boy From Heaven,
Walad Min Al Janna,
صبي من الجنة)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 14 April 2023
No Comments on Cairo Conspiracy,
(original title:
Boy From Heaven,
Walad Min Al Janna,
صبي من الجنة)
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Director – Tarik Saleh – 2022 – Sweden, France, Finland – Cert. 12a – 126m

***

A naive, young, Egyptian student at a top Islamic university is recruited as a spy for the secret police – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 14th

Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), a bookworm born and raised in rural Egypt where he works as a fisherman like his father before him, visits the local mosque where his trusted Imam gives him a letter informing him he’s been accepted into Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar University, the top seat of Sunni Muslim learning and thought. He’s worried his widowed father won’t let him go, but his father fatally accepts it as the Will of Allah. In his university dorm, Adam finds his bed taken by fellow student Raed (Ahmed Laissaoui) and winds up in the bunk below. (The university is for men only: no women. At least, we see none here.)

Unexpectedly, the Grand Imam, the head of the university, dies and a successor must be chosen. At the security forces building, the General (Mohammad Bakri) listens to the analysis by Colonel Ibrahim (Fares Fares) of the possible candidates, throwing all files on the floor except one – the one with whom the President’s views align, the candidate who must win.… Read the rest

Tags academic, Academy Awards, Academy Awards 2022-23, Academy Awards 2023, Ahmed Laissaoui, Al-Azhar University, authorities, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Foreign Language Film 2022-23, Best Foreign Language Film 2023, bookworm, Cairo, clerics, conspiracy, dorm, education, Egypt, Egyptian security forces, election fixing, Fares Fares, Finland, fisherman, France, Grand Imam, higher education, holy man, hypocrite, Imam, Islam, Islamic education, Islamic learning, Jawad Atawil, John le Carré, Koran, learning, leave the country, local mosque, Makram Khoury, Mehdi Debhi, Mohammad Bakri, mosque, Muslim, Oscars, Oscars 2022-23, Oscars 2023, Ramzi Choukair, reciting contest, rural, rural and urban, secret marriage, secret police, security, security forces, Sheikh, Sherwan Haji, spiritual wisdom, Sunni Muslim, Sweden, Tarik Saleh, Tawfeek Barhom, threat of imprisonment, threat of prison, thriller, university, urban

Features Live Action Movies

Copilot
(Die Frau
Des Piloten)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 7 September 2021
3 Comments on Copilot
(Die Frau
Des Piloten)

Director – Anne Zohra Berrached – 2021 – Germany, France – Cert. 15 – 118m

*****

The romantic and sometimes not-so romantic life of a woman whose husband will take part in an act that will shake the world – out in cinemas on Friday, September 10th, advance screening with director Q&A at Genesis Cinema, Mile End at 6.10pm on Wednesday September 8th

“Without you, I wouldn’t have the strength to follow my path.”

Asli (Canan Kir) sees Saeed (Roger Azar) for the first time in Germany when she is on a wild fairground ride with her friend Juia (Ceci Chuh). She meets him again at a student party. They fool around on the beach and in the sea.

1st Year. Two students in Germany. She is from Turkey and studying science. He is from the Lebanon and studying dentistry, a subject his parents pushed him into – he’d rather be a pilot. He hangs up on his mother when she berates him about this – he’d been hoping to introduce her to Amli, now his girlfriend. She doesn’t even know how to talk to her mother about the fact she’s dating an Arab, never mind the fact that they are living together.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Young Ahmed
(Le Jeune Ahmed)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 7 August 2020
No Comments on Young Ahmed
(Le Jeune Ahmed)

Directors – Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne – 2019 – Belgium, France – 85m

***1/2

Exclusively on Curzon Home Cinema from Friday, August 7th

Belgian teenager Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi) is having problems with his teacher Miss Inès (Myriem Akheddiou). As he sees it, she disrespects his Muslim faith. His life timetable is governed by the time table of not, as you might expect, his school but his mosque. He must attend prayers at a specific time. Actually, his teacher and school are more than accommodating of these demands, but that’s not how Ahmed sees it.

He has long and deep discussions with his local Imam, Youssouf (Othmane Moumen), a radical jihadist and frankly a pretty creepy individual. Ahmed looks up to and trusts him. More than he does his teacher who he accuses on various occasions of betraying the faith, having a Jewish boyfriend and being an infidel. (Incidentally, this being a French language movie the word ‘infidel’ has a direct meaning of ‘unfaithful’ in that language, something I’ve never noticed before.) More than he does his mother (Claire Bodson) who he berates for having the occasional drink or two. It doesn’t help that he seems to regard women and girls as unclean and inferior.… Read the rest

Tags Arabic, Belgium, community, community service, detention, farm, France, French, human rights, Imam, killing, knife, language, meeting, mosque, murder, Muslim, parents and children, radicalisation, religion, school, sex, song, teacher, terrorism, weapon, women