Tales Of Syria’s Disappeared; Lebanese Wartime Adoption & Palestinian Mental Health Set For Cinemed-Aflamuna Project Incubator

France’s Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, also known as Cinemed, and Beirut-based Arab cinema platform Aflamuna have unveiled the selection for their fifth project incubator event, which will take place within the framework of the festival in October.

The initiative, bannered the Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters and supporting Arab filmmakers from across the Middle East and Africa, will showcase seven projects.

They include the documentary Disappeared following five Syrian women as they come to terms with the forced disappearance of their sons and husbands under the Bashar Al-Asaad regime, without ever giving up the search for their fate.

The work taps into a raw subject in Syria where at least 177,000 people remain missing having been forcibly disappeared by the regime from 2011 onwards.

It is the latest film from Palestinian, Syria-raised director Anas Zawahri, who made waves this year with My Memory Is Full of Ghosts, revisiting the war-ravaged Syrian city of Homs in 2023, prior to the overthrowing of Al-Assad in December 2024.

Further projects in the selection include Palestinian Wisam Al Jafari’s The Hearse to the Final House of Happiness, about a mental patient who is granted a brief leave from the institution where he is being cared for to attend a family wedding.

It is Al Jafari’s debut feature after award-winning shorts Ambience (2019), By The Sea (2021), Cinema, Mon Amour (2026.)

Hanna Attallah is producing under his Route 243 banner after credits including Thank You for Banking with Us by Laila Abbas, which played multiple festivals including the BFI London Film Festival.

Cinemed and Aflamuna launched their joint project incubator in 2021, with the support of France’s National Cinema Center (CNC), to support filmmakers in 22 Arab territories in the Middle East and Africa,

Under the initiative the participants attend Cinemed’s professional days, running from October 20 to 22 this year, where they French and international professionals and decision-makers for potential partnerships.

“After five years, the Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters, in the continuity of the Aflamuna connection program, are now a well-established part of the Cinemed Meetings, attracting a vast network of producers, French and European institutions interested in discovering new projects from the Arab world,” said Cinemed director Christophe LeParc.

“We are proud to present the seven projects selected this year, and to help expanding their reach and visibility in European markets.”

Cinemed runs from October 16 to 24.

The 2026 Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters Selection

A Tale of a Feather and a Fish
(Egypt)
Dir. Ahmed El Hawarey
Prods. Hala Lotfy (Hassala Films), Jeanne Deny (MAD Solutions)
Amidst the shadow of a devastating genetic disease, three broken family members struggle to find salvation; they are guided toward healing by the very loved ones they must care for.

Accept My Plea For Burial
(Somalia/Djibouti)
Dir. Mohammed Sheikh
Prod. Kadir Harbi, producer (Aleel Films)
In a remote Somali pastoral village, two twelve-year-old boys, Waasuge and Warmooge, spend their days herding goats and playing. Their rivalry turns tragic when Warmooge dies after falling into a dry riverbed during a game. With no clear witness and conflicting testimonies, suspicion grows. As grief turns to accusation, Warmooge’s mother refuses burial without justice, and the village fractures under the weight of uncertainty and pressure to resolve the truth.

Disappeared (doc)
France-Syria-Lebanon-Iraq
Dir. Anas Zawahri
Prod. Ahmad Al Haj (Wind Cinéma)
Five Syrian women confront the forced disappearance of their sons and husbands. Through their daily lives and an ongoing search for truth, they resist political erasure, preserve memory, and reclaim meaning within their cities in the Syrian marginalized countryside.

I Have Other Friends (doc)
Egypt
Dir. Yomna Khattab
Prod. Muhammad Taymour (Chaos Films)
Yomna, the director, on the verge of turning forty, takes us on a personal, intimate journey to portray her female best friends. By navigating the difficult postponed conversations with them, Yomna wonders: ‘Who are my friends when I hit forties?’

The Hearse to the Final House of Happiness
Palestine
Dir. Wisam Al Jafari
Prod. Hanna Attallah (Route 243)
When a Palestinian mental patient in his fifties is granted a brief leave to attend a family wedding, the event descends into chaotic absurdity as his political obsession, a restless family, and street protests clash.

The Space I Carry (doc)
Lebanon-France
Dir. Élise Pouchelet,
Codirector and producer. Josef Khallouf (The FilmMonk)
Born in Lebanon in 1975, at the beginning of the Civil War, Elise was abandoned, then adopted, and carried away to France. Fifty years later, she traces the two lineages that run through her, feeling her way through the fragments and silences that have quietly shaped her. It is in the solitude of the mountains, in the company of wild things, that she finally learns to inhabit the space she carries.

Twelve Fig Leaves (doc)
Lebanon
Dir. Joëlle Abou Chabké
Prod. Lara Abou Saïfan (Placeless films)
When filmmaker-turned-farmer Joëlle discovers the Bawāhīr, an ancestral Lebanese method of weather prediction, she embarks on a year-long journey to test its accuracy while building a permaculture project with her husband in his native Bekaa village. As climate uncertainty and political instability mount, their quest becomes a search for resilience, ancestral wisdom, and survival.