The Perfumed Garden(2000)
THE PERFUMED GARDEN is an exploration of the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arab society, a world of taboos and of erotic literature. Through interviews with men and women of all ages, classes, and sexual orientation, the film lifts a corner of the veil that usually shrouds discussion of this subject in the Arab world. Made by an Algerian-French woman director, the film begins by looking at the record of a more permissive history, and ends with the experiences of contemporary lovers from mixed backgrounds. It examines the personal issues raised by the desire for pleasure, amidst societal pressures for chastity and virginity. The film discusses pre-marital sex, courtship and marriage, familial pressures, private vs. public spaces, social taboos (and the desire to break them), and issues of language.
Movie: The Perfumed Garden
HomePage
Overview
THE PERFUMED GARDEN is an exploration of the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arab society, a world of taboos and of erotic literature. Through interviews with men and women of all ages, classes, and sexual orientation, the film lifts a corner of the veil that usually shrouds discussion of this subject in the Arab world. Made by an Algerian-French woman director, the film begins by looking at the record of a more permissive history, and ends with the experiences of contemporary lovers from mixed backgrounds. It examines the personal issues raised by the desire for pleasure, amidst societal pressures for chastity and virginity. The film discusses pre-marital sex, courtship and marriage, familial pressures, private vs. public spaces, social taboos (and the desire to break them), and issues of language.
Release Date
2000-04-29
Average
0
Rating:
0.0 startsTagline
Genres
Languages:
العربيةFrançaisKeywords
Similar Movies
Like It Is(en)
This documentary on the "youth movement" of the late 1960s focuses on the hippie pot smoking/free love culture in the San Francisco Bay area.
BNT presents: Georgi Gospodinov in the Time Shelter(bg)
A documentary about the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov, who won the International Booker Prize in 2023 for his novel Time Shelter.
Two Spirits(en)
Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag'. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit', who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits.
95 and 6 to Go(en)
Filmmaker Kimi Takesue captures the cadence of daily life for Grandpa Tom, a retired postal worker born to Japanese immigrants to Hawai’i in the 1910s. Amidst the solitude of his home routines — coupon clipping, rigging an improvised barbecue, lighting firecrackers on the New Year — we glimpse an unexpectedly rich inner life.
My Left Breast(en)
Gerry Rogers, a filmmaker in Newfoundland, documents her personal battle with breast cancer. With her partner Peggy and lots of support from family and friends, she makes her way to recovery.
SPEAKABLE(en)
Two girls in their early 20s explore topics of femininity, girlhood, and normalized violence perpetrated on women.
Loyal to My Image(en)
Through one woman's experience as an adopted person and also as a mother who relinquished her child in 1971, this documentary highlights the many complex issues associated with adoption.
Archipelago(fr)
A true animated film about invented islands. About an imaginary, linguistic, political territory. About a real or dreamed country, or something in between. Archipelago is a film of drawings and speeches, that tells and dreams a place and its inhabitants, to tell and dream a little of our world and times.
Utterance: The Music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan(en)
Short documentary about Pakistani musician, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-1997), leading exponent of Sufi devotional qawwali singing.
Kate Bornstein Is a Queer & Pleasant Danger(en)
For decades, performance artist and writer Kate Bornstein has been exploding binaries and deconstructing gender. And, her own identity. Trans-dyke. Reluctant polyamorist. Sadomasochist. Recovering Scientologist. Pioneering Gender Outlaw. Kate Bornstein Is a Queer and Pleasant Danger, joins her on her latest tour capturing rollicking public performances and painful personal revelations as it bears witness to Kate as a trailblazing artist theorist activist who inhabits a space between male and female with wit, style, and astonishing candor. By turns meditative and playful, the film invites us on a thought provoking journey through Kate's world to seek answers to some of life's biggest questions.
The Times That Are(fr)
Four years after Pour la suite du monde (1963), director Pierre Perrault asks Alexis Tremblay if he'll agree to travel with his wife Marie to the country of their ancestors, France. In a montage parallel, we follow them in France and listen to them talking to their friends about it.
Goiânia's Punk: Trans Voices(pt)
Are there trans people in the punk movement? How does punk resists in a brazilian state as conservative as Goiás? Is it open to different gender expressions?
Communion(pl)
When adults are ineffectual, children have to grow up quickly. Ola is 14 and she takes care of her dysfunctional father, autistic brother and a mother who lives apart from them and is mainly heard the phone. Most of all she wants to reunite a family that simply doesn’t work — like a defective TV set. She lives in the hope of bringing her mother back home. Her 13 year old brother Nikodem’s Holy Communion is a pretext for the family to meet up. Ola is entirely responsible for preparing the perfect family celebration. “Communion” reveals the beauty of the rejected, the strength of the weak and the need for change when change seems impossible. This crash course in growing up teaches us that failure is not final. Especially when love is in question.
To Kill a Mockingbird: All Points of View(en)
A 60th anniversary retrospective documentary on the influence and context of the 1962 film, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Three of Many(de)
Böttchers film showcases three young workers who learn how to paint, draw, and make sculptures out of stone. The film generated a storm of mistrust, as there is no leading communist party, and the three individuals live blithely and independently of the official dictates. It became one of the first DEFA documentary productions that were not allowed to be shown.
Kids(de)
In Bettina Büttner’s exquisitely lucid documentary Kinder (Kids), childhood dysfunction, loneliness, and pent-up emotion run wild at an all-boys group home in southern Germany. The children interned here include ten-year-olds Marvin and Tommy. Marvin, fiddling with a mini plastic Lego sword, explains matter-of-factly to the camera, “This is a knife. You use it to cut stomachs open.” Dennis, who is even younger, is seen in a hysteric fit, mimicking some pornographic scene. Boys will be boys, but innocence is disproportionately spare here. Choosing not to dwell on the harsh specifics, Büttner reveals the disconcerting manner in which traumatic episodes can manifest themselves in the mundane — a game of Lego, Hide and Seek, or Truth or Dare. Filmed in lapidary black-and-white, Büttner’s fascinating film sheds light on childhood from the boys’ characteristically disadvantaged perspective — one not yet fully cognizant — leaving much ethically to ponder over.