Daughters of Destiny

In 1979, the Pacific Club was opened in the basement of La Défense - the business district of Paris. It was the first nightclub for Arabs from the suburbs; a parallel world of dance, sweat, young loves, and one-night utopias. Azedine, 17 years old at the time, tells us the forgotten story of this club and of this generation who dreamed of integrating into France but who soon came face to face with racism, the AIDS epidemic, and heroin.

A documentary about Berlin's former airport Tempelhof. A film about Departures and Arrivals. And about those Berliners who come here to escape from their daily lives and those refugees who came here to finally arrive somewhere.

Midnight sharp. Two radio journalissts host a dull cultural program. Lights are switched off. A gang of women invades the studio to broadcast a message: “One, two... One, two... This is a coup!” Venus Retrograde explores an erotic, queer coup d’etat through a campy aesthetic and futuristic themes.

Najib, 16, spends his summer on a video game, until his mother, Asma, discovers the death of their elderly and lonely neighbor. He steals the keys to the apartment, and dives into an unexpected world.

It all happened on a dark night. The Man was tired of being a stranger, tired of being insulted by others simply because he speaks Arabic to a wife who speaks French with their beloved mixed race son. He looked at the sky and shouted. But that night, far in the cosmos, a voice answered.

It unfurls a dreamlike atmosphere carried by the haunting melodies and evocative soundscapes of the Space Afrika duo. Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the film follows the night journey of two young black boys through the abandoned industrial spaces of Manchester, taking forgotten souls back to life. The deserted places are haunted by an opera singer (Axelle Fanyo), who lends a ghostly, lyrical presence to this melancholy universe.

Karim is a young queer science fiction filmmaker. The grief of his break-up with Paul prevents him from writing the script for his film Nuit de Chine. On his mother's advice, he gives up science fiction to write a film about love. One afternoon at the café, he runs into the hero of his film, Fouad, and falls in love.

Claire, a businesswoman promoting a new skyscraper office in La Défense faces increasing scrutiny and isolation. The cold, grey offices amplify her loneliness, driving vivid dreams of setting the tower ablaze.

My family have begun to forget their Egyptian roots and, on asking my grandmother Malo to recount the first part of her life in Cairo, I am confronted by the memories of an exiled Arabic woman, lost in a troubled sea of memories, soon to be erased by the passage of time. I start a tour to trace her steps and understand who she is, and therefore who we are. An Egypt appears where her past, my imaginings and the present Heliopolis mix together as night falls.

In the business district of La Défense, a wave of suicides expose the fractures of a crumbling society. Strangers move through the streets like ghosts, bound by the invisible threads of paranoia. In the eerie glow of a collapsing city, destruction may be the only chance for rebirth.

The Earth post-pandemic.

Alfonse returns to the family château after a long absence. His brother Samuel takes a dim view of this return.