IT'S A SMALL WORLD (Middle East Cinema)

Hollywood may have long been the home of celluloid, but the craft of filmmaking has never been held within one country's borderlines.

From Africa to India, the big screen has enthralled not only its fans, but also those who dream big enough to believe they too could be a part of an industry that would allow them to tell their stories to the world.

Filmmakers from the Middle East are succeeding in taking their audience beyond the six o'clock news headlines and into what they say is the real story of their homeland, not only in an effort to have their story heard as a creative outlet, but to dispel stereotypical beliefs so often prevalent among Westerners.

An insider's perspective on the Middle East can be enjoyed at the AFI FEST presented by Audi, being celebrated at Hollywood's ArcLight Cinemas.

Lebanese writer, director and actress Nadine Labaki explores female relationships with her debut film, CARAMEL, set in a Beirut beauty salon. Within the confines of the salon walls, five women share intimate and liberated conversations that revolve around men, sex and motherhood, between haircuts and sugar waxing with caramel - conversations, she says, that if held on the street could otherwise fill a Lebanese woman with guilt.

"When I made this film, I wanted to write about the future and not look back," Labaki says. "I belong to a generation that wants to talk about something different, love stories for instance, something that is closer to the feelings that we know and the experiences that we have than to war."

"CARAMEL's message (is that) in spite of the opposition between the different religions, reactivated by the war, cohabitation and coexistence are natural - at least, that's how we should live." Award-winning JELLYFISH (Cannes Film Festival 2007) from husband and wife filmmakers Etgar Keret and Shira Gefen also explores female relationships, this time in Israel's Tel Aviv.

The movie, which was also nominated for 10 Israeli Oscars, follows the emotional misadventures of three women whose paths cross at a wedding. Batiya (Sarah Adler) has just lost her boyfriend and works at the wedding in a dead-end waitress job. Joy (Manenita De Latorre) tends an aged woman while longing to be with her own child thousands of miles away. Meanwhile, bride Keren (Noa Knoller) breaks her ankle setting up a disastrous honeymoon.

"It came from a short story I've written which had to do with an early childhood memory," says Gefen. "When I was a little girl my parents took me to the beach, they had a fight while I was floating in my lifesaver and left me there, alone in the water - it was only a moment before they returned but it felt like forever."

From the lives and relationships between Middle Eastern women to the trials and tribulations of a gay man growing up in Tel Aviv, THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING PIECE follows the real-life story of writer and director Oded Lotan as he goes in search of his "missing piece," removed as a baby during an ancient circumcision ceremony.

Other must-see films featuring Middle East talent and themes at AFI FEST include Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parranoud's PERSEPOLIS, Andreas Mol Dalsgaard's AFGHAN MUSCLES, Eran Kolirin's THE BAND'S VISIT, Ramin Bahrani's CHOP SHOP and Nina Davenport's OPERATION FILMMAKER.