Bridgette Auger and Itab Azzam

75 min | UK / Lebanon | 2018

This refreshing film offers a unique peek into the private lives of women who have survived unspeakable sorrow, yet blossom through the healing power of art. During a theater workshop in a Lebanese refugee camp, four Syrian women discover they have a lot in common with the ancient Greek heroine, Antigone, and experience freedoms forbidden in their homeland. Told with humor and heart, We Are Not Princesses elicits intimacy and honesty from its unlikely group of thespians.

 Antigone is a tragedy written by Sophocles in the year 441 BCE. The premise of the play for the purpose of this documentary: Antigone’s two brothers kill each other in battle. King Creon refuses to mourn and bury the instigator, Polynices. Antigone breaks the king’s law and properly buries her brother, for not doing so would be blasphemy. King Creon sentences her to death. She sadly takes her own life. 

Awards and Official Selections: DOC NYC, New York; Ismailia International Film Festival, Egypt; Independent Film Festival of Boston, MA; Audience Choice Award at SF DocFest, San Francisco, CA

SCREENED WITH

BROOKLYN PARK

Nikola Duravcevic

15 min | US | 2019 | New England Premiere

Alone in New York, Somali rideshare driver Abdi begins his nightshift with the news of a tragedy back home. The faces in the backseat change as he wrestles, unable to connect, with whether the unthinkable can be true—until a vision provides the clarity he seeks. Poetic and lyrical, BROOKLYN PARK is a modern-day immigrant tale that explores alienation, grief, and transcendence.

Awards and Official Selections: Best Short Film at Unknown Film Festival, Ekaterinburg, Russia; Best Actor at GIFF – Geelong Int’l Film Festival, Victoria, Australia; Best Fiction Film at Small Axe Film Awrds, Dorset, UK; Best Int’l Short at Indie-Lincs Film Festival, Lincoln, UK; Palm Springs Shorts Fest, Palm Springs, CA; Urbanworld Film Festival, New York, NY; Indie Memphis Film Festival, TN; Faludi Film Festival, Budapest, Hungary; Amity Short Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey; Regard Festival Int’l du Court Metrage au Saguenay, Canada; Newport Beach Film Festival, CA; Radical Frame Film Festival, Berlin, Germany; Busan Int’l Short Film Festival, Busan, South Korea; Deptford Cinema Film Festival, London, UK; Paleochora Lost World Short Film Festival, Crete, Greece; Fear No Film Festival, Salt Lake City, Utah; Doc Sunback Film Festival, Mulvane, Kansas, USA; Lanett City Film Fest, Lanett, USA; Calabria Movie Int’l Short Film Festival, Parco Pignera, Crotone, Italy; Busan Int’l Short Film Festival, Busan, South Korea; Prindie – Princeton Indie Film Festival, Princeton, NJ; Working Title Film Festival, Vicenza, Italy; Woodstock Film Festival, NYC, NY; Aaretaler Kurzfilmtage, Berne, Switzerland