30th Arab Film Festival at SF’s AMC Kabuki (Nov. 5-14)
AMC Kabuki Cinemas | 1881 Post St, San Francisco, CA
Event Details
The 30th anniversary edition of the Arab Film Festival (AFF30), runs November 5–14, 2026 with more than 30 events across San Francisco, Oakland, and the South Bay, including film screenings, filmmaker conversations, panels, special presentations and community events, with select programming available virtually.
- General admission to most screenings: $20
- Opening Night (11/5 at AMC Kabuki): $45
- All-Access Pass: $180
- VIP All-Access Pass: $250
- Virtual-Only Pass: $60
AFF30 will open Thursday, November 5 at AMC Kabuki in San Francisco with Marwan Hamed’s El Sett, a sweeping cinematic portrait of legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, starring Mona Zaki. Celebrated Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy will be honored on Opening Night with the inaugural AFMI Luminary Award for Cultural Impact and will attend as a special guest.
AFF30 will also feature a special presentation of Edward Said: Between Worlds, directed by Maiken Baird, on Sunday, November 8 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, followed by a panel with Baird, producer Sarah Mowaswes and Edward Said’s family.
Acclaimed Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour will serve as Jury Chair for the 30th Arab Film Festival, leading a jury that includes filmmakers Mounia Akl, Shihan Fé Blanca Fahim, Basil Khalil, Jehane Noujaim and Bao Nguyen; visual artist Nabila Abuljadayel; producers Rémi Grellety and Conrad Montgomery; writer and playwright Sabrina Mahfouz; and actor and producer David Oyelowo.
Founded in 1996 as a grassroots response to the near-total absence of authentic Arab representation in U.S. media, the Arab Film Festival created a dedicated space for Arab stories and filmmakers at a time when few such platforms existed. In 2017, the Arab Film and Media Institute was formally launched to extend that work beyond the annual Festival into year-round exhibition, education, creator development, and industry engagement.
Opening Night begins at 6:00 PM on Thursday, November 5 at AMC Kabuki, followed by the 6:30 PM screening of El Sett. Directed by Hamed, the 2025 Egyptian film traces Umm Kulthum’s extraordinary journey from a childhood singing in rural Egypt, where she performed disguised as a boy, to her rise as the Arab world’s most iconic voice. The story culminates around her historic 1967 performance at Paris’s Olympia, while exploring the ambition, sacrifice, resilience and defiance of social conventions that shaped her remarkable life.
More than the story of a musical legend, El Sett is a portrait of a woman whose voice became inseparable from the cultural and political life of a generation. Its themes of artistic power, female ambition, identity and Arab cultural memory make the film a fitting opening to the Festival’s 30th edition.
On Sunday, November 8, AFF30 returns to the Castro Theatre for a special presentation of Edward Said: Between Worlds. The program begins at 5:30 PM, followed by the film at 6:00 PM and a panel at 8:00 PM. After sharing an early look at the project with AFF audiences in 2025, Baird returns with the completed Edward Said: Between Worlds, an archival documentary examining the life, ideas and enduring legacy of Palestinian-American scholar, author, and public intellectual Edward Said.
Told through archival material and Said’s own words, the film follows his journey from his childhood in Jerusalem and displacement in 1948 through his academic career at Columbia University and his emergence as one of the twentieth century’s most influential cultural critics and advocates for the Palestinian people. Said’s landmark work Orientalism fundamentally changed how generations of scholars, artists, and cultural institutions understand the ways the Arab world has been represented by the West. Nearly five decades after the book’s publication, its questions about representation, cultural power, identity and who gets to tell whose story remain deeply connected to AFMI’s mission.
Additional programming to be announced.
Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.
Cost: $45*
