Counterculture Pioneers: Middle East

Shaking up the home of classical Arabic music, an upstart Egyptian dance-music style combines punk spirit with hip hop attitude, set against a furious cascade of drums, bass, and electronic vocals.

In a 2016 documentary, members of a Palestinian surf club defy sanctions to ride the waves on one of a few dozen surfboards smuggled into the territory in recent decades.

The first feature film from Moroccan director Kamal Ourahou illuminates the career of Nassim Lachhab, considered the first Moroccan and African professional skateboarder in history.

Sirens intimately chronicles the lives and music of a young all-female metal band wrestling with friendship, sexuality, destruction, and burgeoning fame against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution.

Negar Shaghaghi and Ashkan Koshanejad play themselves in a lightly fictionalized almost-documentary about young underground rock musicians in Iran planning their escape with the help of a savvy fixer.

Slingshot Hip Hop documents the birth of the hip hop scene in Palestine, braiding together the stories of young artists living under occupation inspired to speak out by voices like 2Pac and Chuck D.