Arab American Heritage Month

One of the most influential political films in history, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, by Gillo Pontecorvo, vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the insurgents.

Shot on the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film is a case study in modern warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal techniques used to combat them. Pontecorvo’s tour de force has astonishing relevance today.

n Gaza, two hairdressers and ten customers of various ages and backgrounds spend the day trapped in a beauty salon while Hamas police fight a gang in the street.

"At eight o'clock, it's Laila's birthday, okay?" Palestinian judge turned cab driver Abu Laila's wife reminds her husband. But on his young daughter's birthday, like any day, Abu faces a nerve-wracking shift in a Ramallah yellow cab armed only with an ex-jurist's misplaced pride, a father's loyalty, and a sticker reminding passengers that smoking and carrying AK-47's are prohibited. Rather than address politics or document holy war heroics and villainy, LAILA'S BIRTHDAY focuses on the toll that the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict extracts from civilians clinging to both employment and a semblance of normal life amidst chaos and corruption, missile attacks and bursts of gunfire.

Set entirely in a police truck, a number of detainees from different political and social backgrounds are brought together by fate, during the turmoil that followed the ousting of former president Morsi from power.

Winner at the Sundance Film Festival, 5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit.

In February 2002 - about a year before the U.S. invasion - Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel traveled home from France to capture everyday life as his country prepared for war. No strangers to war, the Iraqis thought they understood what was coming, and could even manage to be grimly humorous about what they felt would likely be a major and lengthy inconvenience. And then, the war began.

A moving exploration of the profound and far-reaching impact of surveillance on Muslim American individuals and communities. WATCHED is told through the personal experience of two women, both coming of age in New York. The film charts the devastating toll of surveillance and reveals the scars it leaves behind.

The Palestinian American musician Simon Shaheen's mastery of the Arabic oud and violin has brought him international acclaim.

This film, the first in Documentary Arts' Connecting Cultures series, follows Shaheen in his daily life in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn where he lives, and documents his performances at Symphony Space in New York City and the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Shaheen demonstrates his melodic ingenuity and his command of genres ranging from traditional Arabic music to jazz and Western classical styles.