4th Dubai International Film Festival, December 9th - 16th

[Al-khiyal]

4th Dubai International Film Festival

[Al-khiyal]

November 22, 2007 -- The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) yesterday announced the slate for its programming segment Arabian Nights, which offers films made by filmmakers from the Middle East and beyond, focusing on stories related to Arabs and the Arab world. The staggeringly diverse segment is comprised of 19 films, including four World Premieres, which falls in line with DIFF’s mandate of promoting Arab cinema on the world stage.

In the features category, Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s inspiring Whatever Lola Wants has been chosen as the Gala. Starring Laura Ramsey (She’s the Man, 2006) as the title character, the film explores the mentoring relationship between Lola, an irrepressible young dancer from New York and a reclusive Egyptian dancer who has all but retired from the world. Through dance, they overcome the pain of lost love, lost opportunities and lost time.

Masoud Amralla al Ali, DIFF’s Artistic Director, expanded on the choice of Whatever Lola Wants as the Arabian Nights Gala Film, which will screen on December 11, 2007: “It is an important opportunity for a Moroccan director to work with an American star, and this is an important film for us at DIFF because it acts as a cultural bridge: Lola is inspired by Egyptian art and culture, and goes through a transformation that changes her life as a result. The positive, upbeat nature of the film makes it a natural choice to be the gala.”

Of the other features, three are set outside the Arab world, in Europe and Canada: Nasser Bakhti’s Night Shadows, explores 24 hours in the life of five people in Geneva who defy that city’s picture-postcard image; Ana el Akhar (Me the Other) follows the impact on two friends’ relationship when one suspects the other of being a suspect in the Madrid train bombings; and Nafizati Bala Watan (From my Window, Without a Home) is set in Montreal, about a mother-daughter reunion 17 years after the mother abandoned her child in Beirut.

Three of the features deal with the troubled past and present of Algeria: Layali Arabia (Arabian Nights) depicts a French railway worker who searches for his missing friend, a young, homeless Algerian woman; Cartouches Gauloises, follows two 11-year old brothers and their best friend as Algeria’s War of Independence breaks out; and Intimate Enemies shows the clash between an idealistic young lieutenant and a cynical old sergeant in the occupying French army. Michou D’Auber, starring Gerard Depardieu, is a comedy about a young Algerian boy sent to a foster family who disguise him as a little French boy.

Arabian Nights also contains a strong thematic grouping of films referred to as ‘The 9/11 Effect,’ dealing with the impact of the 2001 New York attacks on the lives of ordinary Arab-Americans. AmericanEast focuses on the points of view of three main characters who epitomise different aspects of Arab-American life in the post-9/11 era, and USA vs Al-Arian is a documentary about the family of Arab-American Sami Al-Arian, who was arrested in 2003 for supporting terrorism and put in solitary confinement. The theme of wrongful confinement runs through the three shorts in the collection: Al Ab Al-Mokhless (A Father Taken), Yasin and The Good Son.

The programme’s other shorts are diverse: Both delves into the world of a former Lebanese militia man living in London, Posthumous explores the intersection of fiction and the real in Beirut through experimental video, and Either Me or Haifa is a Palestinian love story between a refugee living in Denmark and a journalist in Haifa. Baris ala el Baher (Paris by the Sea) follows Wilson, a young immigrant from Benin who weaves a wonderful life for himself in Tangiers in his letters to his parents, and Good Night Malik compares the lives of two brothers living in Paris.

Unusually for the Arabian Nights segment, this year there is only one documentary, Ladies, Women, Citizens, which follows five women from very different segments of Lebanese society, discussing their own dreams and the hopes they cherish for their country’s future.

DIFF 2007 will run from 9-16 December.

Arabian nights

[piccolomondo]

Dubai Film Festival (DIFF) honours top Arab talent

Honour killing in Palestine and interfaith love just two themes explored by winners of second Muhr awards.

The Gold Muhr was won by Taht el Qasef (Under the Bombs), which explores interfaith love in Southern Lebanon between a Shi'a woman and a Christian man.


The Bronze Muhr for Documentary went to journalist, writer and filmmaker Nassri Hajjaj's Nassri Hajjaj's Dhil al Gheyab (Shadow of Absence), about Palestinian anxiety about what Hajjaj calls 'the site of burial.'

Silver went to Palestinian director Buthina Canaan Khoury for Magharat Maria (Maria's Grotto), which explores honour killing in Palestine.

The Gold Muhr went to Karim Goury's stylistically unusual Soneaa fi Masr (Made in Egypt), which follows a Frenchman as he searches for his Egyptian roots.

[read more]

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