LAAF (Liverpool Arab Arts Festival) is the longest running annual festival of Arab arts and culture in the UK. Returning for its 23rd year this July, the 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.
The full 2025 lineup has now been released with more information about the festival in both English and Arabic here.
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.
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Some of the festival events this year include:
ART & PERFORMANCE
LIMBS OF THE LUNAR DISC: ISTHMUS ANCIENT RIVER
Friday 11th July, 10am
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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 free performance lecture by Sarah Al-Sarraj at 1pm on Saturday 12th July (booking required).
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.
Venue:
World Museum, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN
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FILM
DOUNIA PART 1 & 2: CINEMA AT CROSBY PLAZA
Sunday 13th July, 2 – 5pm
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Join LAAF for this family friendly screening of animated films Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo, and Dounia – The Great White North.
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.
he creator and author of Dounia, Marya Zarif, was born and raised in Aleppo, Syria. She has lived in Canada for the past 15 years but remains very attached to her country of origin and the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing the war. “Like Dounia, because I come from Syria, I know that there is nothing more wonderful than a land where people, cultures, colours, languages and customs meet and mix. It has been Syria for millennia; it is the world of today. I gave birth to all those characters to give faces to all the migrants who have become numbers and whose humanity is forgotten. Dounia is a declaration of love to my people and a gift to those who open their arms to them,” she says.
André Kadi, who arrived in Canada in 2007 as a graphic novel author and a musician, joined Frima animation studios, where he stayed for over 11 years. At the head of the artistic department, he founded a branch of the studio in Bordeaux , and opened a 2D animation studio in 2012, where he made the series MaXi and Agent Jean in particular, before co- founding Du Coup Animation in 2018 with Marie-Michel le Laflamme, then Du Coup Production in 2021. A rigorous studio head who directs most of Du Coup’s projects, he co-directed Dounia in 2020 on behalf of Tobo, with Marya Zarif.
Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo is his first feature film.
Age recommendation: 6+
£6 (Free entry for under 16s)
Venue:
Crozby Plaza, 13 Crosby Rd N, Waterloo, Liverpool L22 0LD
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THE LEGEND OF THE LOOMS
Thursday 17th July, 7 – 8.30pm
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Join LAAF for a screening and conversation with poet and filmmaker Ali Al-Jamri on his first film, described as a poetic ghost story.
The Legend of the Looms is Ali Al-Jamri’s first film: 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.
Watch the trailer.
Working in film for the first time, Ali Al-Jamri’s The Legend of The Looms is both a poem and a film exploring shared revolutionary histories through handloom weaving. It is a narrative debate poem between two ghostly weavers: one from the North West, where weavers were critical in working class movements; the other from Bahrain, where weaving communities played vital roles in reform movements.
Filmed with the weavers of Al-Jamri’s own family in Bahrain, and in Rossendale Valley, at a historic weaver’s cottage in Rawtenstall, the piece dances between place, fact and folklore, creating a new myth that explores how people of the diaspora can relate to an unlikely new landscape through the interconnectivity of oppressions, craft, and mortality.
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. It was first exhibited at Blackburn Art Gallery with the British Textile Biennial.
Venue:
Toxteth TV, 37-45 Windsor Street Liverpool L8 1XE
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MUSIC
AKRAM ABDULFATTAH
Saturday 19th July, 8 – 10pm
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Akram Abdulfattah is a Palestinian-American violinist who combines jazz with middle eastern and Indian music.
Akram’s music is influenced by Hindu, Turkish, and Persian styles, reflecting the rich legacy and culture of oriental sounds in a modernized fashion.
In 2023, his multinational group visited the UK for the first time, performing a debut London show, and appearing at Knockengorroch and Cambridge Folk festivals. Akram’s talent has received international recognition as he’s won prestigious awards and engaged in various international and cross-culture projects.
‘A truly gifted violinist, with agility, virtuosity, and a deep spiritual and emotional connection. His music is rooted in Middle Eastern traditions, but his musicality extends way beyond geographical boundaries.’ Brian Keane, American multiple Emmy winning composer, renowned guitarist, and Grammy winning producer
Venue:
Music Room, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Hope Street, Liverpool L1 9BP
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LAAF FAMILY DAY 2025
Sunday 20th July, 12 – 5pm
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Get ready to experience the return of Liverpool Arab Arts Festival’s closing Family Day spectacular at the iconic Sefton Park Palm House.
Immerse yourself in a FREE afternoon of authentic Arab art, culture and community during this joyful celebration.
Featuring music and performance by leading musicians, our Family Day also brings an array of creative workshops, mouthwatering cuisine and exciting children’s activities.
There will be over 20 stalls featuring authentic crafts, traders and so much more.
LAAF’s annual ‘Family Day‘ celebration is an unmissable highlight in Liverpool’s cultural calendar.
