WHEN ARABS DANCED

NYC PREMIERE In this winner of Best Film and Audience Award at Visions du Réel, filmmaker Jawad Rhalib documents diverse creative voices in the Muslim world—including his mother, a Moroccan dancer—who seek to free themselves from bonds of stereotypes and repression. The film forgoes conventional artist-profile tropes in favor of a weave of rehearsals, conversations, performances and a trove of archival materials that remind us of the long and often sensual history of dance and music found throughout the Arab world.