In its fifth year, the MENA Film Festival in Vancouver is set to showcase its most expansive and regionally diverse array of films on the big screen from January 27 to February 1. Founded in 2019, the festival works to bridge the gaps in the arts and provide Middle East and North African (MENA) — also known as South West Asian and North African (SWANA) — representation. The 2024 artwork, sold as a limited-edition print, was crafted by Egyptian artist Marwan Shahin from Shahin Studios in Los Angeles. The 90-minute feature won the Amnesty International Film Award at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. Her mother remembers this experience as “being thrust into adulthood in a singular moment.”The MENA Film Festival aims to make the online screenings available in the United States next year, the festival’s strategy director Ghinwa Yassine said.
