San Diego Arab Film Festival at MOPA

San Diego’s Arab Film Festival wraps up its 15th edition Sunday, April 19, with final screenings at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. (sandiegoaff.org) The 2026 festival is split across two weekends — March 27-28 and April 17-19 — and presents eight screenings in the John and Irwin Jacobs Theater at the Museum of Photographic Arts. Individual tickets are $15, student tickets are $12, three-ticket packages cost $40, and full festival passes cost $80. (sandiegoaff.org) Organizers say the lineup spans the Arab world, with each screening built around a feature and, in most cases, a short film. Arabic dinners are also sold each evening for $18, and tickets remain available at the door until sold out after online sales close the morning of each event. (sandiegoaff.org) This year’s program leans heavily into films that have already traveled on the international awards circuit. The festival says six entries were their countries’ official submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature, including Morocco’s “Calle Malaga,” Iraq’s “The President’s Cake,” Lebanon’s “A Sad and Beautiful World,” Jordan’s “All That’s Left of You,” Tunisia’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” and Palestine’s “Palestine 36.” (sandiegoaff.org) Festival leaders have framed the event as a corrective to narrow depictions of the region. Chair Larry Christian told KPBS the festival has long included Palestinian films, while board member Jinane Abbadi said the goal is to show “the humanity, the creativity, the breadth” of Arab cinema rather than put audiences “in one box.” (kpbs.org) KPBS reported that the opening-night screening of “Palestine ’36” sold out a week in advance, and that the second weekend opens with “All That’s Left of You,” a multigenerational Palestinian family story. The same report said the closing stretch also includes “Sudan, Remember Us,” “A Sad and Beautiful World,” and “The President’s Cake.” (kpbs.org) “Calle Malaga” is one of the films singled out for flipping a familiar migration story. Abbadi told KPBS the Spanish-Moroccan co-production follows a Spanish woman in Morocco, shifting the usual Europe-bound perspective while keeping the story centered on belonging. (kpbs.org) The venue is itself a film-focused institution. The Museum of Photographic Arts at The San Diego Museum of Art says it presents photography, film and video programs year-round, and has operated as part of the merged MOPA@SDMA institution since July 1, 2023. (balboapark.org) For San Diego audiences, the last day of the festival is the last chance in this run to catch Arab features and shorts in a theater setting rather than on the festival circuit. The 15th edition closes Sunday at MOPA after five nights of screenings spread across two spring weekends. (sandiegoaff.org)