Returning for its 23rd year this July, organisers have also released this year’s festival brochure, featuring everything you need to know about the event, in both English and Arabic.
LAAF exists to support and champion creatives from across the Arab region and its diaspora, in the belief that art and creativity have the power to express a shared humanity. The festival also celebrates Liverpool’s unique identity; a city, with a global community and brimming with artistry, that looks outwards across the world and welcomes and accepts all who arrive within it.
– NEWLY ANNOUNCED FOR LAAF 2025 –
Archiving Nostalgia
LAAF are delighted to present Archiving Nostalgia, a film screening featuring two short films and a feature length documentary.
This event at FACT on 14th July showcases contemporary Arab films from Lebanon, Tunisia, and Algeria that reflect on nostalgia as both a thematic and aesthetic tool, all creating powerful archives of personal and collective memory.
The screening will be followed by an in-person panel discussion on Arab cinema archiving.
Hadi Badi Children’s Workshop
LAAF are delighted to welcome Hadi Badi co-founders, Hend Badawy and Raneem Soliman, back to the festival to lead an interactive storytelling session for children aged 4–8 years.
The session on Sunday 13th July at Bluecoat will introduce participants to high-quality Arabic children’s books that explore themes of nostalgia and memory, whether about home, family, places, or special moments.
Following the storytelling, children will enjoy a fun, creative activity linked to the story, designed to engage and inspire.The workshop will be conducted bilingually in Arabic and English.
Hadi Badi is an initiative launched in 2019 by three Egyptian women based in the UK,France, and Egypt. Its mission is to make Arabic children’s literature accessible to all by creating engaging reading experiences. Hadi Badi reaches children and young adults directly through interactive activities, and indirectly by supporting adults working with and for children of Arab heritage worldwide.
Photo courtesy of Hadi Badi
Dounia Part 1 & 2: Cinema at Crosby Plaza
Join LAAF for this family friendly screening of animated films Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo, and Dounia – The Great White North on Sunday July 13th at the Plaza Community Cinema.
• Dounia And The Princess of Aleppo (2022) A few nigella seeds tucked in the palm of her hand, 6-year-old Dounia leaves Syria with the Princess of Aleppo’s help and travels towards a new world.
• Dounia – The Great White North (2024, UK premiere) is an animated winter special about how little Dounia, the Syrian girl now aged 7 years old, finds a new home and makes new friends in beautiful Canada, while hoping her dad will join her soon.
This screening is organised in partnership with At The Library, a programme of artist-led workshops, projects, commissions and happenings in Sefton Libraries as part of their programme, The Colour of Pomegranates.
Arabs Are Not Funny
Back by popular demand! You might have thought that Arabs couldn’t get any funnier. Think again. The funniest Arabs in UK are back on stage, in the flesh, funnier than ever before!
In association with Arts Canteen, LAAF are proud to announce the return of the highly successful and popular night of comedy, coming to Rough Trade Liverpool on Saturday 12th July.
Suitable for ages 18+
The Book of Sana’a
Join LAAF for a celebration of storytelling, writing, and music from the capital of Yemen, in association with Comma Press.
Although largely unseen behind media rhetoric of war, the city of Sana’a remains one of the most beautiful and enchanting cities in the Middle East. Beset by years of civil war, authoritarian regimes and extreme poverty, it is also the home of an extraordinary community of writers.
The latest instalment in Comma’s ‘Reading the City’ series is ‘filled with hopes and dreams, with flickers of magic and scathing satire’. It also offers a perfect opportunity to celebrate the writers Sana’a is producing and the art and challenges of translating them.
LAAF, in association with Comma Press, would like to invite you to VideOdyssey on Saturday 19th July to this unique night of food and poetry readings, including award winning poet Hamdan Dammag, ahead of readings from the Book of Sana’a.
The Doors open at 12:45pm for a light buffet lunch and refreshments and an opportunity to view Mohamed Thulaya’s model of the historic city of Sana’a, followed by readings and music starting at 1:30pm.
Photo courtesy of Comma Press
The Legend of the Looms
Join LAAF on Thursday July 17th at Toxteth TV for a screening and conversation with poet and filmmaker Ali Al-Jamri on his first film, described as a poetic ghost story.
When a visitor to a historic weaver’s house in Rossendale accidentally summons an irate Lancashire weaver’s ghost, his own ancestor, an Arab weaver from Bahrain, materialises to defend him.
Ali Al-Jamri is one of Manchester’s inaugural Multilingual City Poets (2022-2025). The film is commissioned by the Arab British Centre and funded by Arts Council England and the Freelands Foundation.
Photo courtesy of Ali Al-Jamri
Limbs of the Lunar Disc: Isthmus Ancient River
This new work explores alternative temporalities engaging with ancestry, ecology and the long term impacts of environmental violence.
Viewers are invited to follow an Ancestor on a journey down the river of time, from the faraway future to the present, encountering the remnants of their descendants.
Witnessing the future ramifications of radioactive waste storage and large scale irrigation projects, this work imagines how our relationship to the land may continue to change as we adapt to one another across hundreds of generations.
This free video exhibition visible throughout the festival duration at the World Museum in the The World Cultures Gallery.
The exhibition will be complemented by a performance lecture by Sarah Al-Sarraj (see below).
Image courtesy of Sarah Al-Sarraj
“Limbs of the Lunar Disc: Break the Clocks”.
This special ‘performance lecture’ will imagine that we are in a spaceship hurtling through time, and will explore non-Western conceptions of space and time, incorporating quantum physics, liberation theory, and the work of Black Quantum Futurism and scholar Jackie Wang.
This event on Saturday 12th July at 1pm in the World Museum’s Theatre Room is part of “Limbs of the Lunar Disc”, a project funded by the Arts Council England Project Grants, with curatorial support from Jessica El Mal of The Arab British Centre.
Sarah Al-Sarraj is a visual artist and cultural worker. Her practice centres on worldbuilding as a creative and critical process, where painting and immersive technologies are understood as portals to other worlds.
Image courtesy of Sarah Al-Sarraj
These events join the already announced theatre double-bill of Penguin and A Grain of Sand, violin virtuoso Akram Abdulfattah, Nour Bishouty exhibiting in collaboration with Liverpool Biennial, an evening of stories and discussion around Palestine, a Jordanian culture and food experience, an exhibition on architectural and heritage experiences, Tatreez embroidery workshops, and the ever-popular Family Day at Sefton Park Palm House, for what’s shaping up to be an eclectic multi-arts festival.
This year’s festival theme is Nostalgia, which will be explored through a diverse range of disciplines, including music, theatre and performance, visual art, spoken word, literature and film.
Liverpool Arab Arts Festival takes place from 11th to 20th July 2025 across Liverpool venues. More information and tickets for all events available via arabartsfestival.com.
