Event

Teta/The Virgin, the Copts and Me

Teta/22min

Abandoned by both parents and left with her little sister in their grandmother's care, Sarah is like her teenage friends, wanting time and freedom to hangout, but generational tension erupts between her and Teta. Set in Byblos, an historic town in Lebanon with a prominent Maronite Christian community, a family's life is turned upside down when their iconic Virgin Mary statue sheds tears.

The Virgin, the Copts and Me/92min

Namir is a French filmmaker whose Coptic Christian parents moved to France in 1973. One day he watches a video of the Virgin Mary's apparition with his mother who, like millions of other Copts, sees the Virgin while he sees nothing. Skeptical, Namir travels to Egypt, interviewing Christian and Muslim witnesses claiming to see the 1968 apparition. Comedic moments abound from his French producer's exasperation as Namir veers from the prescribed documentary about inter-faith violence, to wrangling with his mother, a skeptic herself about his ability to not produce another failure, "just like your last." Best Arab Documentary 2011 Doha Tribeca Film Festival.