The Jasmine Revolution was not a surprise.

The whole world is looking to the shake of regims in Middle East and in North Africa. First was Tunisia, now Egypt and likely the rest of the region will be soon reached by the same wind .
In all parlements of the EU there are talks about how the hurricane of change which started in Tunisia and is right now boiling in Egypt is forcing everybody to revise its approach towards these societies. This is politics.
In All televisions and all newspapers there are talk-shows and special programs about scoops and sensational events. This is media.
Both of them present the uprising of those two populations as a surprise.
Artits and specialists will gather and look at the phenonmenon from the point of view of art and culture.
Come and meet Tunisian intellectuals, Egyptians and Dutch in a special discussion around fragments of cinema, theater and music coming from two societies since years already in ebullition.

Basra, Ahmad Rashwan, Egypt/Syria, 2008

Starring : Basem Samra, Yara Goubran, Eyad Nassar, Nahed El Sebai, Mohamed Al Ahmady, Fatma Adel, Christine Soliman
How can an Egyptian photographer, in his thirties, surpass his own disappointments & fears? How can he find an answer to the existential questions related to life, death, sex and logic amidst his awareness of all the absurdity around him? Can this artist remain alive (breathing, thinking, and photographing) surviving the oppressive atmosphere?

Satan’s Angels, Ahmad Boulane, Marocco, 2007
Starring: Mansour Badri, Fahd Benchemsi, Rafik Boubker, Younès Megri, Driss Roukhe
Casablanca (Maroc), 2003. 14 young hard-rockers are arrested and condemned for sentences from 3 months to 1 year. What are the accusations? Satanism and shaking the foundations of Islam. They are charged with "upsetting the Muslim faith". The legal authorities give this trial an absurd dimension. The media and society are up in arms... Based on actual events.

Maiking of… Kamikaze, Nouri Bouzid, Tunisia, 2006
Starring : Lotfi Abdelli, Lotfi Dziri, Hanene ben Mahmoud, …
Bouzid is not very keen on religion but respects tradition. Like for the rest, he strives to defuse the criticism he anticipates even before it is voiced. By tackling terrorism from a more intimate and cultural rather than detective aspect, he offers Arabs both a self-examination and proposes an inversion of racist Western clichés.

Microphone, Ahmad Abdalla, Egypt, 2010
Starring : Khaled Abol Naga, Menna Shalabi, Yosra El Lozy
Khaled returns to Alexandria after many years of absence. By sheer coincidence, he meets some hip-hop singers on the sidewalk, rock musicians on the rooftops of ancient buildings and young people who paint shocking graffiti on the walls at night.