World Premiere

In 2008 the filmmakers were following a group of young heavy-metal musicians in Egypt who offered an unconventional perspective on the Muslim world. Oppressed by a government that banned their music, the kids struggled to retain a small bit of freedom. Then one spring, Hosni Mubarak’s 28-year grip on the country was broken, and what had been a story about the struggle for the right to free expression — the right to rock — became a story about the battle for the future of Egypt.

Before the Spring After the Fall portrays a few remarkable young people —sons of a jailed political dissident and the leader of the only female metal band in the Middle East — as they seek to reshape their country, defining themselves as individuals in the process. With their music as the soundtrack, we follow them into a transformed world, where the political becomes the personal, where uncertainty is the only constant. [subtitles]

Alienated from his friends and haunted by his brother’s death, a young Israeli boy sparks an unusual friendship with a Palestinian boy from the other side of the West Bank separation wall. However, as the political divide intensifies, can this wordless, and unseen, relationship overcome the seemingly inevitable escalation of conflict manifested by the wall’s towering presence? [subtitles]