Safar: A Journey Through Popular Arab Cinema runs Sept 21-27 at London’s ICA.

In partnership with the ICA and Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), The Arab British Centre have announced the full programme for their inaugural week-long Arab film season.

Safar: A Journey Through Popular Arab Cinema opens on Sept 21 with Philippe Aractingi’s Bosta, the first post-war musical made in Lebanon which broke records at the Lebanese box office on its release in 2006. The season runs until Sept 27 when it closes with Marwan Hamed’s The Yacoubian Building, the most expensive Arab-Egyptian film ever made at the time of its production, with Hamed in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.

Other highlights in the programme, curated by Egyptian-born, UK-based writer and producer Omar Kholeif, include the first showing on the big screen in the UK of Sherif Arafa’s farcical coemdy Terrorism And The Kebab, Georges Hachem’s Stray Bullet, winner of the Muhr Arab Award for Best Film at the 2010 DIFF, and a rare screening of Salah Abouseif’s The Beginning And The End, starring Omar Sharif in his final film before his Hollywood breakout Lawrence Of Arabia.

Safar will also feature a series of Q&As with experts, leading actors and filmmakers, including Khaled Abol Naga, Nadim Sawalha and Hussein Fahmy, among others.

For the full line-up, visit The Arab British Centre’s website.

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