The St. Paul-based arts organization Mizna has presented its Twin Cities Arab Film Festival since 2003, making it the nation's second longest running program of Arab cinema. Returning Thursday with a four day run, it continues its presentation of over two dozen features and shorts from across the Middle East. This year's assortment of Minnesota premieres includes dramas and shorts from Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia and Syria, including the 2014 Oscar Documentary Short Subject nominee "Karama Has No Walls," showing lethal government violence against Arab Spring protesters in Yemen's capital. There's even a lively French-Moroccan comedy-drama featuring Egyptian film legend Omar Sharif. The opening night presentation is "Rock the Casbah," a handsome coproduction about three upper-class sisters torn between Muslim traditions and Western mores. Sharif jauntily plays the trio's late father, whose passing unites the family (including brats, egotists and kind souls) for three days of mourning at his lavish estate in Tangiers. Youngest daughter Sofia (Morjana Alaoui) hesitantly returns to the family villa after years of working as an actress in the US. (As it's pointedly noted, she's usually typecast as a terrorist – "But in Hollywood!") (7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6. In subtitled French, Arabic, and English.) The festival runs through Sunday at the St. Anthony Main Theatre. For a complete schedule and ticket information, visit mizna.org/arabfilmfest
