First presented at Shubbak festival in July at The Barbican, Imagined Futures invites you to discover the Arab region’s most exciting new voices in this rich mix of sci-fi, animation and drama.

In Mounia Akl’s Submarine, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2016, wild child Hala stubbornly refuses to evacuate her derelict house when the garbage crisis in Lebanon causes her village to flee. Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour offers a dystopian, humorous solution to the deadlock in the Middle East in Nation Estate.

Chadi Aoun’s animation Silence celebrates the secret codes of silent creative resistance in the authoritarian darkness of a dysfunctional society about to implode. Capturing the urgency of the realities lived by many on the shores of the Mediterranean today, Mare Nostrum directors Rana Kazkaz and Anas Khalaf reflect a Syrian parent’s choices to save his daughter.

---