Film Screening: “Halal Love (and Sex)”

211 E. 46th Street, New York

LAU NY Academic Center, co-sponsored with The Arabian Sights Film Festival and LAU’s School of Arts and Sciences, is hosting the film screening of Halal Love (and Sex), a comedy by Assad Fouladkar.

Halal Love is the story of three individual but intertwined stories in which devout Beiruti Muslims try to manage their love lives and desires without breaking any of their religion’s rules. Awatef, middle aged mom of two girls, is recruiting a second wife to help her satisfy her overly loving husband. The young and excessively jealous Mokhtar needs to find his ex-wife another man to be able to marry her again - for the 4th time. Loubna, freshly divorced, can finally marry her true love, but on a short-term contract only since he has a family.

Assad Fouladkar was born in Lebanon, studied filmmaking at Boston University, and lived for a few years in Australia before returning to Lebanon. His first feature film, When Maryam Spoke Out (2001), was the Lebanese official entry to the Academy Awards. More recently, Assad has been living Egypt directing what has become the most successful sitcom in the Arab region, Ragel w 6 Sittat (A Man and 6 Ladies). Halal Love (and Sex) was nominated for the Big Screen Award at Rotterdam, and was part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance. Fouladkar serves as a part-time instructor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, where he teaches filmmaking.