Movie Nights -

In 2024, we will screen films from and about the Arab world for adults and families. And, we will continue to educate about the history and culture of Palestine as we show Palestinian films once a month.
Join us for an evening to enjoy a light dinner followed by a movie screening.
Movies will be in Arabic, French, or a combination and have English subtitles.
Some movies are for adults (Friday nights), some movies are for the whole family (Saturday nights).
Movies are free and dinner is available for purchase. Reservations greatly appreciated!

— Movies for Adults —

1/12 -Arab Blues

Friday, January 12, 2024
7 pm – Dinner ($15)
7:30 pm – Movie (Free)

Run time: 1hr 28m
Comedy, Drama

Movie is free & open to the public.

Dinner (optional) – $15
RSVP appreciated
MENU: Tunisian Chicken Tagine with Couscous, salad, dessert

After 10 years of living in Paris, Selma (Golshifteh Farahani) has returned to Tunis. Back home, her younger cousin can’t figure out why she’d leave the French capital, her aunt is overbearing, and her uncle is only giving her a matter of weeks to crash in the apartment above their house. Selma, nonetheless, is steadfast in her resolve: she wants to open up a psychotherapy practice. So begins the first feature directed and written by Manele Labidi, an incisive comedy about coming home, breaking taboos, and building community. As Selma tries to settle in, she’s faced with increasing complications that she couldn’t have predicted. There isn’t just the matter of finding interested psychotherapy patients in a locale that’s not keen on the talking cure, but she also needs to navigate a confusing bureaucratic circus in order to get the right papers to run her practice. On top of all that, a strapping cop, Naim (Majd Mastoura), is keeping a close eye on her every move.
—Toronto International Film Festival

1/26 - Salt of this Sea

Friday, January 26, 2024
7 pm – Dinner ($15)
7:30 pm – Movie (Free)

Run time: 1 hr 49m
Drama, Romance

Movie is free & open to the public.

Dinner (optional) – $15
RSVP appreciated
MENU: Bamiya with beef in tomato sauce (with vegetarian option), white rice, cauliflower salad, and Orange Cardamom Olive Oil Cake

Soraya, born in Brooklyn in a working class community of Palestinian refugees, discovers that her grandfather’s savings were frozen in a bank account in Jaffa when he was exiled in 1948. Direct, stubborn, and determined to reclaim what is hers, she fulfills her life-long dream of “returning” to Palestine. Slowly she is taken apart by the reality around her and is forced to confront her own anger. She meets Emad, a young Palestinian whose ambition, contrary to hers, is to leave forever. Tired of the constraints that dictate their lives, they know in order to be free, they must take things into their own hands, even if it’s illegal.
—JBA Production

2/9 - Costa Brava

Friday, February 9, 2024
7 pm – Dinner ($15)
7:30 pm – Movie (free)

Run time: 1hr 47m
Drama

Movie is free & open to the public.

Dinner (optional) – $15
RSVP appreciated
MENU: Baked eggplant with ground beef and nuts (vegetarian option available), freekeh, batata harra (Lebanese potatoes), green salad, Layali Lubnan (Lebanese semolina milk pudding dessert)

Costa Brava, Lebanon captures the joys and frustrations of a close-knit family with an intimacy that feels startlingly natural, and sets them against a sharply drawn backdrop of environmental crisis. In the not-so-distant future, the free-spirited Badri family have escaped the toxic pollution and social unrest of Beirut by seeking refuge in an idyllic mountain home. Without warning, the government starts to build a garbage landfill right outside their fence, intruding on their domestic utopia and bringing the trash and corruption of a whole country to their doorstep. As the landfill rises, so does tension in the household, revealing a long-simmering division between those family members who wish to defend or abandon the mountain oasis they have built. Mounia Akl’s stunning feature debut premiered at Venice and won major prizes at the Toronto and BFI London Film Festivals. Her unique gift with actors is evident in the sensitively realized performances she elicits from her cast, which includes award-winning filmmaker Nadine Labaki (Capernaum) and celebrated actor Saleh Bakri (The Band’s Visit, Walid).

2/23 - Pomegranates & Myrrh

Friday, February 23, 2024
7 pm – Dinner ($15)
7:30 pm – Movie (free)

Run time: 1hr 35m
Drama

Movie is free & open to the public.

Dinner (optional) – $15
RSVP appreciated
MENU: Green beans with beef cubes in tomato sauce & white rice (vegetarian option available), green salad, dessert

A free-spirited dancer in Ramallah, Kamar, finds herself the wife of a prisoner, Zaid, and away from everything she loves until she returns to the dance, defying society’s taboos. At the dance Kamar is confronted by Kais, a Palestinian returnee, who has taken Kamar’s role as the head choreographer. Sparks fly between Kamar and Kais, creating more than a passionate, emotional dance for the both of them. Matters become even more complicated when Zaid’s sentence is extended. At the same time the family’s legal case against the land confiscation faces one obstacle after another and the villagers from the nearby villages are unable to reach the family’s olive groves, placing the annual harvest, and consequently the family’s livelihood, in danger. And Kamar’s life is thrown into turmoil as she becomes increasingly attached to Kais and caught in the midst of her desire to dance and breaking the family and society taboos of the prisoner’s-wife’s role while life under occupation rages on.
—Najwa Najjar

3/8 -Peace by Chocolate

Friday, March 8, 2024
7 pm – Dinner ($15)
7:30 pm – Movie (Free)

Run time: 1hr 36m
Comedy, Drama

Movie is free & open to the public.

Dinner (optional) – $15
RSVP appreciated
MENU: Hara Osbao / حراء أصبعه (vegetarian), soup, dessert (chocolate!)

After the bombing of his family’s chocolate factory, Tareq Hadhad, a charming young Syrian refugee, struggles to settle into small-town life in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Despite moving to a new country, he’s intent on pursuing his dream to become a doctor. But when his father, Issam, insists that he must focus on survival, Tareq and his family move towards a different, but familiar path: Rebuilding Issam’s chocolate business.

When what seemed like a nostalgic attempt to cling onto remnants of an old life past becomes an overnight sensation, Tareq is shocked. Put in the role of business manager, he must choose between the demands of an exponentially growing business and an offer to go back to medical school. New challenges arise between a rival chocolatier while the heartbreak of Tareq’s sister left behind in Syria weighs heavily on the family.

Nevertheless, Tareq remains set on his goals, buoyed by a supportive community of eclectics. As father and son both struggle to find common ground and navigate the complexities of family duty, the heightening tension between them threatens to tear the family apart.

Based on the internationally recognized true story.

5/10 - When I Saw You

Friday, May 10, 2024
7 pm – Dinner ($15)
7:30 pm – Movie (Free)

Run time: 1hr 38m
Drama

Movie is free & open to the public.

Dinner (optional) – $15
RSVP appreciated

1967: The world is alive with change: brimming with reawakened energy, new styles, music and an infectious sense of hope. In Jordan, a different kind of change is underway as tens of thousands of refugees pour across the border from Palestine. Having been separated from his father in the chaos of war, Tarek, 11, and his mother Ghaydaa, are amongst this latest wave of refugees. Placed in “temporary” refugee camps made up of tents and prefab houses until they would be able to return, they wait, like the generation before them who arrived in 1948. With difficulties adjusting to life in Harir camp and a longing to be reunited with his father, Tarek searches a way out, and discovers a new hope emerging with the times. Eventually his free spirit and curious nature lead him to a group of people on a journey that will change their lives. When I Saw You is the story of people affected by the times around them, in search of something more in their lives. A journey full of adventure, love, humor, and the desire to be free. A story of the human spirit that knows no borders.

5/24 - Where Do We Go Now

Friday, May 24, 2024
7 pm – Dinner ($15)
7:30 pm – Movie (Free)

Run time: 1hr 50m
Comedy, Drama

Movie is free & open to the public.

Dinner (optional) – $15
RSVP appreciated

Where Do We Go Now? tells the story of a remote, isolated, unnamed Lebanese village inhabited by both Muslims and Christians. The film is is an intriguing comedy in which the women of a tiny, isolated Lebanese village conspire to bring about peace. The local Christians and Muslims have co-existed since time immemorial. Recently the men, inflamed by the introduction of TV and its outside news, have decided the two groups are enemies. When two crowds get into a shoving match, it’s always the insecure hotheads who take the lead.