Discover Arab Cinema, BFI Southbank

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a politically and economically tense region makes a fertile breeding ground for great cinema, and this new season at the BFI brings us some wonderful films that have sprung up amidst the ferment of the Arab world. These are tense, conflicted films that bear testament to the turbulent life in a region undergoing enormous change.

But alongside contemporary Arab cinema, this season presents some of the region's cinematic classics. Amongst these is When I Saw You, Annemarie Jacir's 1967 drama about an eleven-year-old boy who feels dissatisfied with his life in a Jordanian refugee camp among his fellow Palestinians who are fleeing persecution in their native land. Separated from his father and his home, he searches for a way out of the camp and stumbles across a group of Palestinian freedom fighters. This is an emotionally and politically fraught film that skillfully blends a family narrative with a tale about the struggle for nationhood, both plot lines being quests in search of their father's land.

Among the contemporary films on offer is Faouzi Bensaïdi's Death for Sale, Morocco's entry into the Best Foreign Language category at the 2013 Academy Awards. This is a tale of romance and crime among a group of friends stuck in desperate, dead-end lives. And continuing the Moroccan theme, there is also a showing of selected shorts from a new generation of Moroccan film makers.

This is an energetic new season with real social and political relevance and it is not one to be missed.