I CAN’T  tell you how excited I am about the Arab Film Festival, coming to Canberra for five days of screening. It’s the same  reason I get excited about the Latin American Film Festival each year. You get an insight into important parts of the world that are undergoing rapid change and how else but in film could you do that?

Last year, for instance, the festival opened with “Cry of An Ant,” made in haste to reflect events in  Cairo’sTahrir Squareat the beginning of the Arab Spring.

As Mouna Zaylah of Information and Cultural Exchange in Sydney, says:  “No cinema is more timely and needs to be explored as that from the Arab world.”

According to Zaylah, the Arab national cinemas are all now pre-occupied with their responses to what has happened.

“The stories are not always grand dramas of recent national political turmoil. More often they’re microcosms and metaphors that encapsulate the popular desires long laid beneath aspirations for political reform,” Zaylah says.

Ideas emerging include the conflict between the desire for personal social freedom and individuality, and the continuous values of family, custom, tradition and authority, asking questions about what really are genuine Arab values and traditions and “what are just homilies masking and legitimatising authoritarianism.”

The Tunisian documentary “No More Fear” follows the Arab Spring, but from Egypt, but  the focus in films such as “Asmaa” and “Cairo 678” is on what this means on the street and in the home. The opening night film, “Habibi” (Darling) shows tensions between younger Palestinian Arabs and the old nationalists. And in  Jordan’s “The Last Friday” andLebanon’s “Tayeb, Khalas, Yalla” we see  stories of middle-aged Arab men suddenly taken our of their comfort zones in  the brave new world.

A popular feature returning  this year will be the  screening of recent Arab-Australian short films, as well as some of the prize-winning and promising short filmmaking from the region.

7pm Thursday  July 12, “Habibi” + “The Pillars”

6.15pm Friday  July 13, “Asmaa,” then 8.30pm “No More Fear” and  “Fly OverEgypt.”

4.30pm Saturday July 14, “The Rif Lover” + “Fighting for Air,” then  7.30pm “Cairo678” + “Yasmine and the Revolution.”

2pm Sunday  July 15, “The Last Friday” + “Trab Laus”  then 4.30pm “Tayeb, Khalas, Yalla”

2pm Thursday July 19, “Cairo678.”

2012 Arab Film Festival, at the Arc Cinema,  July 12-19, bookings to  6248 2000 or at the NFSA Box Office. Tickets $11/$9 concession.Program details  at nfsa.gov.au/arc and arabfilmfestival.com.au