In the early 1920s Leopold Weiss, a Viennese Jew, alienated by the materialism and spiritual emptiness of the West, travelled to the Middle East, visiting Jerusalem, Egypt, the Transjordan and Saudi Arabia. After studying the Koran, he left his Jewish roots behind, converted to Islam and changed ...
Abdullah Haron was a divisive and unifying force in the Muslim community of 60s South Africa. After his controversial death in custody, came the battle for his legacy. His grandson tries to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from legend and contrivance from reality a picture emerges of two comp...
G’day Cameleers featuring four Australian Muslim boys who, during their school holidays, went on a journey to explore the land of the early Australian Muslim Cameleers (Well known as the Afghan camel-drivers) and paid visit their final resting place.
London in the late 1960s. A steady stream of hippies get switched on to the teachings of Sufism through Ian Dallas, a Scottish playwright and actor who had encountered Islam on a trip to Morocco. He takes the group to Morocco and introduces them to Shakyh Muhammad ibn al-Habib. The shaykh gifts t...
Baju Melayu is a traditional clothing worn by Malay men mostly in Malaysia, Brunei Indonesia and Singapore. It is worn during official ceremony, Islamic festivals and weddings. Using archive photos, historical journals and with the help of animation this film dig into the meaning and origin of Ba...
A collage of daily life in Aq Kupruk builds from the single voice that calls the townspeople to prayer, the brisk exchange of the bazaar, communal labour in the fields, and the uninhibited sports and entertainment of rural Afghans. The theme of the film focuses on rural society.
Spotlight on Hirbawi Textiles in the city of Hebron – the last remaining factory in Palestine that produces the traditional and iconic Palestinian scarf known as the Kuffiyeh.
The Afghan cameleer’s induction into Australia was a rough ride and not without its intrigues, however, they conquered the outback and they achieved in part their role as nation-builders. It is a tragic story about men who lost their great tribal warrior-like identities and became impotent fringe...
An extraordinary real life story set in 1919. Born a King is a coming-of-age story about Faisal, a 14 year old teenage Arab prince who is dispatched from the deserts of Arabia to London by his warrior father, Prince Abdul Aziz, on a high stakes diplomatic mission to secure the formation of his co...
The film explores the rural border areas of Poonch, Surankote, Loran and Mandi, stretching through the beautiful and magnificent mountain ranges of Pir Panjal.
The aim is to break the common stereotype about the areas infamous for violence and cross-border conflict between India and Pakistan. ...
At dawn a nomad caravan descends on Aq Kupruk from the foothills of the Hindu Kush. In their camp, and in commerce with the townspeople, the Maldar reveal the mixture of faith and distrust that has kept nomads and sedentary people separate and interdependent over the centuries.
'Damascene Houses - preserving the memory of an architectural wonder'.
In 2017-18, Augustus Lersten was awarded a grant for the production of a video on 'Damascene Houses' - Interior dimensions, architecture, and the cultural nuances and stories that these houses carry and what they mean to Syri...
Based on a true story, set in 1942, in Nazi-occupied Paris. A child escapes a raid and takes refuge within the Great Mosque of Paris. The imam Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit decides to protect him, as well as the other young Jewish teenagers that he will manage to free with help from resistance networks....
An archaeological detective story of the meeting of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and a Christian monk Bahira, that happened in the shade of a tree. Fourteen hundred years later, that same tree was discovered still alive in the Northern deserts of Jordan; the only tree alive in hundreds of square m...
"A Message from the East" invites us to take another look at Islam, through the window of time during the late-colonial rule of India. Muhammad Iqbal was a man who understood the nature of contradiction and the necessity of balancing the converging forces in our lives. An inspiration to the peopl...
Celebrating the life and works of Muhammad Knut Bernstrom, the Swedish diplomat who converted to Islam and took it upon himself to interpret the Qur'an for a contemporary Swedish readership. Combining the best of European thought with the heart of Islamic tradition, Knut Bernstrom's life is an ex...
Swiss broadcaster, RTS - Radio Télévision Suisse, present rare archive footage from the Haram al Sharif during the Hajji pilgrimage in 1970. A fascinating view of the sacred precinct in comparison with the modernisation, development and transformation that as taken place over the decades.
This silent film by Georg Eduard Albert Krugers is a rare personal documentary of his journey in 1928 from Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies) to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, with a group of pilgrims performing the Hajj. Krugers' commentary in texts on screen provides a personal commentary on the ev...
