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Jacir tops DFC honorees BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW
The Worthy has a postapocalyptic setting
Image Nation sneak previews The Worthy Abu Dhabi film company Image Nation gave a sneak peak of Emirati director Ali F Mostafa’s upcoming feature The Worthy, set in a dystopian future in chaos after a chronic water shortage, at DIFF on Sunday. “I think it’s safe to describe it as the Arab world’s first postapocalyptic feature,” said Mostafa who was joined at a news conference by Image Nation’s head of narrative Ben Ross and producer Rami Yasin. A short trailer showed a fastpaced, high-octane work set in a derelict world reduced to rubble in which everyone has to fight for survival. It is Mostafa’s third film after his breakthrough title City Of Life and pan-Arab road movie From A To B. The director said the decision to shoot an action thriller was in keeping with his long-term aim to shoot a variety of genres. Image Nation’s Ross explained the project had first been developed by US producers Peter Safran (Annabelle) and Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity, The Visit). Both are on board The Worthy. “I read the script four years ago when I was still in the US. For one reason or another it never came together, and when I was casting around for new projects for Image Nation, I got in contact with them to see whether we could make it here,” said Ross. Mostafa and Yasin oversaw the “arabisation” of the screenplay. The film, which was shot on location in dilapidated buildings in Romania over the summer, is in post-production and is due to hit screens some time next year. Melanie Goodfellow
Palestinian film-maker Annemarie Jacir’s Nazareth-set dark comedy Wajib scooped the top prize at DIFF’s co-production market, Dubai Film Connection, on Sunday. The project, following a divorced father as he spends the day with his estranged son delivering his daughter’s wedding invitations, won DIFF’s top $25,000 prize. It is produced by Jacir’s longtime producer Ossama Bawardi. The DIFF prize jury consisted of Loic Magneron, founding chief of Paris-based sales company Wide Management, Toronto International Film Festival’s executive director Michele Maheux and VOX Cinemas’ Toni El Massih.
Another six prizes were handed out at Sunday’s ceremony. The second biggest cash prize, the $15,000 Fortress Film Clinic Award, went to Egyptian film-maker Hala Lotfy’s gritty social drama The Bridge, set against the backdrop of the Nile. In other awards, Lebanese filmmaker Bassem Breish’s The Maiden’s Pond won the $10,000 ART Award, meted out by regional broadcaster Arab Radio and Television; Papion On Top Of The Water Tank, to be directed by Yahya Alabdallah and produced by Rula Nasser, clinched the $10,000 Cinescape/Front Row Award; and Iraqi director Koutaiba Al Janabi’s Daoud’s Winter picked up the $10,000 Empire Award. Hind Bensari’s documentary
Weight Throwers, about Morocco’s forgotten paralympian champions, won the $10,000 Sanad Film Fund Abu Dhabi Award. DIFF’s co-financing market relaunched this year after a one-year hiatus with its long-time chief Jane Williams holding the reins once again. A total of 12 projects from Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco and Jordan were presented at the three-day event. “We’re incredibly proud we’ve had a really strong slate to re-launch DFC,” Williams said at the awards. “We’ve always been about diversity and here are a range of diverse and very strong voices. We’ve always been about quality and these projects are of a very high quality.”
Neilson Barnard, Getty Images
Star Wars, page 10
INTERVIEW
Joyce Nashawati The Lebanese director talks about her Greece-set festival hit Blind Sun » Page 8
FEATURE
A location not so far, far away The UAE is shaping up to be a key destination for international shoots » Page 10
FORUM EVENTS MONDAY DECEMBER 14
10:30 – 12:00 The game changers Is the emergence of more daring themes and styles of Arab filmmaking ushering in a new era of regional cinema? Panellists Majid Al Ansari, director, Rattle The Cage (Zinzana); Danielle Arbid, director, Parisienne; Alaeddin Abou Taleb, director, Diaspora; Assad Fouladkar, director, Halal Love; Noura Kevorkian, director, 23 Kilometres
14:30 – 16:00 Virtually real The future of immersive content. Panellists Julie Young, producer, Emblematic Group; Jon Starck, head of research, The Foundry; Philippe Bertrand, interdisciplinary artist, BeAnotherLab; Hayley Pappas, head of films, RYOT; Elia Petridis, film-maker
17:00 – 18:15 Networking session: UAE film industry Lebanese director Assad Fouladkar (left) with Darine Hamze and Rodrigue Sleiman, the stars of his highly anticipated tragi-comedy Halal Love, which is playing in DIFF’s Arabian Nights section and has also been selected for Sundance. See review, page 6.
Iran’s Soureh launches sales on ISIS rape doc BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW
Iran’s Soureh Pictures Company has launched sales on powerful documentary A157, which follows three Kurdish girls who fell pregnant after been raped by members of extremist group Islamic State (ISIS). It is the latest film by Behrouz Nouranipour, whose past works include God Doesn’t Make A Mistake, about a family coming to terms with the tragic death of its camel-driver patriarch, and A Crime In Silence, capturing the long-term impact of chemical weapons attacks on people in a village on the Iran-Iraq border. The title A157 refers to the
number of the girls’ tent in a refugee camp on the Turkish border with Syria. “It’s a beautiful film capturing the tragic story of three young women who were raped by Daesh fighters,” said Maryam Naghibi, head of international sales at Soureh. “We sent the film to Berlin and are awaiting a response.” One of Iran’s biggest producers and distributors, Soureh is attending Dubai Film Market for the first time this year. Other new titles on its slate include feature-length family animation Mobarak by Ali Najafi Emami. The work, which has been sub-
mitted to Annecy International Film Festival, is inspired by the characters of Persian poet Ferdowsi’s Farsi classic epic Shahnameh, or Book Of Kings. The mythical characters are portrayed as a set of puppets that are stolen from their puppet-master owner. Other new titles include Hossein Mahkam’s Parole, about a young boy with a troubled family background, who is on parole after being jailed for a series of petty crimes. Mahkam’s previous credits include Barf, and he was also a co-writer on Vahid Jalivand’s social drama Wednesday, May 9th, which premiered at Venice this year.
Open to DFM and DIFF delegates Ramy Hamdar, Alkatraz Production; Julie Smythe, Filmworks; Rami Yasin, producer; Ben Ross, Image Nation; Sameer Al Jaberi, Abu Dhabi Film Commission; Saeed Al Janahi, Dubai Film & TV Commission; Razan Al Marzouqi, Dubai Studio City; Rana Osman, Dubai Studio City; Shane Martin, Boomtown Productions; Raul Skopecz, Optix Dubai TUESDAY DECEMBER 15
From 11:00 Advanced Media: open house Open house on RED Weapon, Zeiss and Angénieux lenses.
14:00 RED Weapon camera launch Official launch of RED Weapon for the Middle East and North Africa by Advanced Media.
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NEWS
UAE feels the force BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW Mother Of The Unborn
Zawya plots arthouse expansion Egypt’s Zawya Cinema is expanding outside Cairo to other Egyptian cities as it taps into the country’s small but growing audience for arthouse films. In addition to the cinema it operates in downtown Cairo, the company is collaborating with theatres in the cities of Alexandria, Tanta and Menya to host weekly screenings of Arab and European independent films. Owned by Misr International Films, Zawya also operates a distribution arm, Zawya Distribution, which focuses on independent Egyptian films. In November, the company released Nadine Salib’s awardwinning documentary Mother Of The Unborn, which screened in Cairo and Alexandria, and Ahmed Nour’s Waves, which played for six weeks in the sea port of Suez where the film is set. Zawya Distribution also released Egyptian omnibus film The Mice Room, which premiered at DIFF in 2013, in Cairo and Alexandria earlier this year. It also distributes its titles across TV, VoD and in-flight platforms. “There’s an enthusiastic audience for independent cinema in Egypt, and not just in Cairo,” said Zawya Distribution director Youssef El Shazli. “We’ve been able to expand to other cities because there’s a genuine demand among audiences to see different types of films.” Zawya also hosts the annual Panorama of European Film with backing from the EU and other partners. The latest edition, which closed December 5, screened films such as Mustang, Rams, 45 Years and The Lobster. El Shazli and Zawya Distribution head of sales Ahmed Sobky are finalising their release slate for 2016 and expect to announce some acquisitions in the coming months. Liz Shackleton
www.screendaily.com
Dubai is not the only emirate to roll out the red carpet this week: neighbouring Abu Dhabi is gearing up to host the Middle East premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Wednesday, having played host to the production in 2014. Director JJ Abrams and his crew spent 10 days shooting in Abu Dhabi, filming in its barren Liwa region on the edge of the Empty Quarter desert, which stretches up to the border with Saudi Arabia. “It was an amazing achievement for us to be part of the Star Wars adventure,” Noura Al Kaabi, CEO of Abu Dhabi’s media and entertainment hub twofour54, told Screen. The shoot is among a number of high-profile international titles to have visited the emirate since it kicked off its drive to create a world-class media and entertain-
JJ Abrams and friend on the Abu Dhabi set
ment hub less than a decade ago Other films include Fast & Furious 7 and War Machine, produced by and starring Brad Pitt. Al Kaabi noted that for War Machine, Abu Dhabi’s desert doubled up as Afghanistan. In Star Wars, Abu Dhabi acts as the backdrop for Jakku, “a frontier desert planet in a remote section of the Outer Rim territories”. She added that the Star Wars shoot was significant on a number of levels. As well as helping to train and skill-up local technicians, the production is also expected to boost tourism. The shooting coup was also a sign the emirate’s strategy to develop a
creative industry hub is moving in the right direction. “In 2007 we had one official broadcaster in Abu Dhabi; we didn’t have a media sector. Now we have 400 media partners working with us,” she said. Al Kaabi noted that Abu Dhabi could be versatile as a setting. “Films like Fast & Furious and Star Wars are a great product placement for Abu Dhabi but it’s not just about showing off our landmarks and scenery. Abu Dhabi can double up as other locations,” she said. Guests at Wednesday’s invitation-only Star Wars premiere will have access to a number of props and sets from the Abu Dhabi shoot. The long-term plan is to create a park around the former sets. “We’re currently figuring out where to set them up permanently,” said Al Kaabi. » See feature, page 10
Neilson Barnard, Getty
DIFF and UAE charity organisation Dubai Cares raised more than $300,000 at their star-studded The Global Gift Gala charity auction, which took place at the Four Seasons Resort at Jumeirah Beach on Saturday. Hosted by actress and honorary chair Eva Longoria, alongside The Global Gift founders Maria Bravo and Alina Peralta, the event raised funds for The Eva Longoria Foundation, Dubai Cares, Sunrise K and the Global Gift Foundation. Other stars to attend the event included Richard Dreyfuss, Terrence Howard, Michael B Jordan, Rupert Everett and Argentinian actor and comedian Guillermo Francella.
Very Big Shot lands top prize at Marrakech BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW
Lebanese crime thriller Very Big Shot (Film Kteer Kbeer) has won Marrakech International Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Star. The debut feature from Lebanese director Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya revolves around three drug-dealer brothers attempting to break with their life of crime. The film was a Doha Film Institute grantee. Local pan-regional distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment
and exhibitor VOX Cinemas announced yesterday they had co-acquired the title for release in the Gulf. In other Marrakech awards, Brazilian film-maker Gabriel Mascaro won best director for his feature Neon Bull, about a group of rodeo-show cowhands, which originally premiered at Venice. Best actress went to Galatea Bellugi for her performance in Guillaume Senez’s Keeper and best actor
to Gunnar Jonsson for his interpretation of an introverted man in Dagur Kari’s Virgin Mountain. In an unorthodox move, the jury led by Francis Ford Coppola decided to split the Jury Prize between all the remaining titles in the competition: Babai, Closet Monster, Cop Car, Desierto, Keeper, Key House Mirror, Lingering Memories, Neon Bull, Paradise, Steel Flower, Thithi, Toll Bar and Virgin Mountain.
DIFF PICKS DUBAI’S PROGRAMMERS LOOK BEYOND THE WORLD PREMIERES AND RED-CARPET GALAS
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT Based on the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Ciro Guerra’s third feature is an adventure story about the first contact, betrayal and eventual friendship between an Amazonian shaman and two scientists searching for a healing plant. “This is a visually astonishing film about the clash of cultures and a heartbreaking depiction of the state of indigenous communities,” says Cinema of the World director Nashen Moodley. The film is Colombia’s submission for best foreignlanguage film at the Academy Awards, after winning the Art Cinema award in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in May.
THE TREASURE Romanian film-maker Corneliu Porumboiu delighted critics at Cannes with his story of two brothers who hire a metal detector and dig up a garden they have inherited on the rumour of buried treasure. “It’s incredibly funny and goes to such unexpected places,” says Moodley. “It’s a moral fable with a dark sense of humour and you’ll leave the cinema with a big smile on your face.” Porumboiu won the talent prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar and picked up best screenplay at Cairo International Film Festival. His credits include 12:08 East Of Bucharest, which won the Camera d’Or for best first film at Cannes in 2006, and Police, Adjective, which played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2009.
December 14, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 5
Reviews Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan finn.halligan@screendaily.com
Nawara Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan
Halal Love Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan It’s Beirut, Actually. Assad Fouladkar has made a light, joyful film about love and its many, messy forms in the romantic comedy Halal Love. Three couples try to follow what they believe to be their hearts’ desires within a sharia setting, and it proves as difficult as love outside Islamic strictures. But it’s the passion that Fouladkar (When Maryam Spoke Out) has for Beirut in all its faded glory that tugs on the heartstrings in this feature, supported by and bound for Sundance after a Dubai world premiere. Towards the end of the film, a character drinks coffee on his balcony overlooking what was once known as the Paris of the East before war split the city asunder; the central characters stroll on Beirut’s legendary, reconstructed Corniche. They’ve fallen in and out of love and tied themselves in knots trying to find happiness. Look, says Fouladkar, this is our normality. His is an optimistic message in troubled times, and a confection that should find resonance in arthouse and festival play for Films Distribution. What is ‘halal love’? The film starts out with an amusing sex-education lesson in which adorable schoolgirl Nasma (Christy Bared) discovers ‘worms’ make babies; she and her little sister proceed to wear plastic bags in bed to avoid getting pregnant, not that their stressed mother Loubna (Darine Hamze) bothers to ask why. She’s got an uxorious, randy husband in Salim (Ali Sammoury), and she decides to exploit Islam’s allowance of four wives to find herself a get-out from his nightly demands in second wife Bardot (Fadia Abi Chahine). Her neighbour Batoul (Zeinab Hind Khadra), meanwhile, is struggling in her new marriage to the jealous Mokthar (Hussein Mokadem). Will he divorce her for the third time, a deed that cannot be undone because, as the Iman says, “Rules are made for idiots like you.” And while the divorced Awatef (Mirna Moukarzel) thinks she might finally have found her heart’s desire in a (permitted) ‘secret marriage’ to childhood sweetheart Abu Ahmed (Rodrigue Sleiman), she may not be able to overcome the shame of being divorced. Love is tough no matter how you approach it, says Fouladkar, directing from his own screenplay. And halal love makes as much — and as little — sense as any other variety with all the hypocrisies and face-saving it often entails.
6 Screen International at Dubai December 14, 2015
Arabian Nights Ger-Leb. 2015. 94mins Director/screenplay Assad Fouladkar Production companies Razor Filmproduktion, Sabbah Media Group International sales Films Distribution, info@ filmsdistribution.com Producers Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner, Sadek Sabbah Cinematography Lutz Reitemeier Editor Nadia Ben Rachid Production design Tanja Arlt, Maia Khoury Music Amine Bouhafa Cast Darine Hamze, Rodrigue Sleiman, Mirna Moukarzel, Zeinab Hind Khadra, Hussein Mokadem, Christy Bared, Ali Sammoury, Fadia Abi Chahine, Hussein Mokadem
Director Hala Khalil has a lot to say about Egypt, postTahrir Square, and 122 minutes is hardly enough time to fit it all in. Nawara is a classic ‘women’s film’ in which life is tough for the determinedly cheerful Cairo maid Nawara (the appealing Menna Shalabi) and clearly risks getting worse. It’s just a question of when. But the film is deceptively light on its feet, ladling subversion into its classic set-up. This marks an arresting feature debut for Khalil, which stands to be a hit for the director at home in Egypt despite her excoriating indictment of the country’s ruling classes. Life for the poor is always the same, she says, no matter how much the guard changes. It’s a universal message that, along with the film’s weepy watchability, could see Nawara appeal in select international festival play. Nawara begins the film as she carries on — on her feet, helping people — including her grandmother, with whom she lives despite being married to the long-suffering Aly (Amir Salah Eldin). Their slum doesn’t have running water and she starts what turns out to be a very long day by lugging two laden containers from the well. Then it’s onto Aly’s motorbike for a trip to the hospital, where his father is suffering from prostrate cancer. Despite bribing the nurse, Aly can’t get a bed, surgery or even medicine for his dad. By now, Nawara is late for work, and she races from one minibus to the next to reach an exclusive, gated compound where she works for one of Cairo’s elite families. This is spring, 2011, and the compound is being emptied, its occupants fleeing overseas with their ill-gotten gains. Nawara loves the spoiled and imperious Usama family, however, and has been working there since she was a child. Protesters are chanting for “bread, freedom and equality”, and the radio provides a constant commentary on events: Hosni Mubarak has been arrested and prosecutors are demanding the return of his funds. The people are powerful. The family decides finally to flee for London, leaving Nawara in charge of the house. Khalil delivers an object lesson on Egyptian politics and corruption, all hiding behind Nawara’s naïve, winning smile. In retrospect the film’s climax was always coming, but it’s an education getting there.
Muhr Feature Egy. 2014. 122mins Director/screenplay Hala Khalil Production company Red Star For Production And Distribution International sales Red Star For Production And Distribution (outside Middle East), info@ redstarfilms.net Cinematographer Zaki Aref Editor Mona Rabei Music Layal Watfeh Cast Menna Shalabi, Mahmoud Hemeda, Shereen Reda, Amir Salah Eldin, Ragaa Hussein, Ahmed Rateb
www.screendaily.com
Meet the film-makers, page 8
Beeba Boys Reviewed by Allan Hunter This Indo-Canadian gangster movie from Deepa Mehta is a rambunctious change of pace for a director associated primarily with serious-minded, issue-led pictures such as Earth and Water. And judging by the uneven handling of its scattershot narrative and casual violence, it feels Mehta may not be entirely at ease with the genre. She employs plenty of hollow, post-Tarantino bluster. The Beeba Boys, sharply suited acolytes of the Sikh underworld’s rising star Jeet Johar (Randeep Hooda), are introduced with on-screen titles summing up their principal characteristics — the camera whistles around what, at first glance, appears to be a Punjabi wedding to reveal the Joker, Faithful, the Groom, Lovely et al. The twist is that the Groom is dead. The ‘wedding’ party has been arranged by his doting mother to fulfil his lifelong wish to tie the knot. In a rather preposterous piece of scene setting, Jeet is interviewed by a reporter from television programme Vancouver Now — while having his chest waxed. The interview, which is apparently broadcast live, focuses on his ambitions to start a turf war with the established main player in the Sikh gangster community, Robbie Grewal (Gulshan Grover). If this rather public declaration of guilt does not mark Jeet out as one of the dumbest career criminals in history, the cycle of explosive violence that follows mounts a persuasive case. Arrested for suspected murder, Jeet finds himself on trial. In the jury is a striking blonde, Katya (Sarah Allen), who Jeet targets with the full force of his charm. He is found not guilty, and rewards Katya with a troupe of Punjabi drummers, a private visit to her nail salon and a gift-wrapped pair of lacy knickers. Eye-catching, colour co-ordinated costumes are a nice detail, lending the film a cartoonish quality that diffuses some of the violent excess. A bouncy Bhangrainfused score brings a propulsive drive. And the juxtaposition of the brash crime world with the traditional family and community is an intriguing theme. However, this is under-explored in a film that favours cheap thrills over any real insight. Dialogue is profanitylaced but lacks credibility, a fact that is accentuated by several unconvincing central performances.
www.screendaily.com
Cinema of the World Can. 2015. 95mins Director/screenplay Deepa Mehta Production company Hamilton Mehta Productions International sales Mongrel International, international@ mongrelmedia.com Producer David Hamilton Cinematography Karim Hussain Editor Colin Monie Production designer Arvinder Grewal Main cast Randeep Hooda, Ali Momen, Sarah Allen, Waris Ahluwalia, Gia Sandhu
Dégradé Reviewed by Allan Hunter
Arabian Nights
Even the customers of a Gaza Strip beauty parlour are not immune to the violence that surrounds them in Dégradé, an ambitious, promising but only partially successful first feature from Palestinian twin brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser. Stranding a cross-section of women in a confined setting allows the brothers to pursue their aim of exploring the realities of everyday lives in Gaza, but the film is doggedly conventional from its single setting to its largely one-note characters. It works best as straightforward drama rather than caustic farce, which is surprising given the brothers’ reputation for irreverence. Filmed in Jordan and inspired by true events from Gaza in 2007, the low-budget film depicts Christine’s Salon as a sanctuary from the outside world. ‘Dégradé’ translates as degeneration but is also the name of a hair style. There are echoes of Steel Magnolias and Caramel in a salon where women come to pamper and gossip, trade news and escape reality. The first third of the film is a listless drift through the defining characteristics of the women in the salon. Owner Christine (Victoria Balitska) is the outsider and has settled in Gaza from Russia. Eftikhar (Hiam Abbass) is a bitter divorcee, Zainab (Mirna Sakhla) is strict about her religion, Salma (Dina Shebar) is about to be married, Fatima (Samira Al Aseer) is due to give birth. None of the women are especially remarkable and perhaps that is the intention; these are banal lives that just happen to unfold in a chaotic land scarred by eternal division. The brief glimpses of life outside the salon are filled with guns and menace. It is an oasis but also a prison reflecting an entire country trapped by its history. A stolen lion becomes the catalyst for a pitched battle that erupts outside the salon doors between Hamas and a gangland family. The energy and pace in the final third, achieved through fast cuts and swooping camerawork, makes for a much more compelling and even poignant film. There is still a sense the brothers have not fully realised the potential of their material or fully exploited the absurdity of stolen lions and beauty-parlour fisticuffs.
Pal-Fr-Qat. 2015. 84mins Directors/screenplay/ production design Tarzan and Arab Nasser Production companies Les Films Du Tambour, Made In Palestine Project International sales Elle Driver, sales@elledriver.eu Producers Rashid Adelhamid, Marie Legrand, Rani Massalha Cinematography Eric Devin Editor Sophie Reine Music Benjamin Grospiron Main cast Hiam Abbass, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Manal Awad, Mirna Sakhla
December 14, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 7
Director Interviews
Joyce Nashawati
Nasser Al Dhaheri
Nightmarish thriller Blind Sun, the debut film by the Lebanon-born director, is one of the festival hits of the year. She talks to Colin Brown
The Emirati director talks to Colin Brown about his feature documentary on the importance of water and date palms to life in Dubai
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Blind Sun
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lind Sun started off with an image. “A setting, an atmosphere,” recalls director Joyce Nashawati of her feature debut, a tense psychodrama steeped in paranoia and socio-political dynamics. It has turned heads at every film festival it has played so far including Thessaloniki and Sitges. “I wanted a mystery film that takes place in full daylight by the Mediterranean Sea,” she explains. “I started to think about it during a hot summer near Athens. A forest fire had turned the sky over the coast an eerie orange colour. There was ash falling over us. It felt like the end of the world, as if the end of the world had a terrifying beauty.” The drama uncoils in a Greek resort during an oppressive heatwave. With water short and violence in the air, an immigrant by the name of Ashraf (played by Palestinian actor/film-maker Ziad Bakri) guards a French family’s
villa while they are away. Driving down a dusty road, a policeman pulls him over to check his papers and the nightmare begins. Nashawati weaves into her dystopian vision many of the most incendiary themes facing Europe right now — immigration, racism, climate change and economic disparity. “The idea was to be in a pre-apocalyptic time zone. A parallel present or near future. It’s like putting a magnifying glass on some parts of reality to make them take over. And since I tried to construct the world and feel of the film like a nightmare for the main character, they are meant to be an organic part of the suspense. When I started writing, the media hadn’t highlighted the Greek crisis yet; it was before it took place. There were lots of homeless people in Paris and I was nostalgic for the Greek sunshine.” Nashawati has great affection for DIFF, a festival that has supported her work since her first short film and where she met her French distributor, Pretty Pictures. “It will be very interesting to talk about Ashraf with an audience of Arab origin because of the way he and my film are ‘Arab’, which is one word for so many different things,” she says. “It’s important the Arab world is allowed to think of itself in a multiple and free way, and tell stories to itself through different genres and motives, not only realist dramas.”
8 Screen International at Dubai December 14, 2015
isitors to DIFF tend to be struck by Dubai’s new architectural wonders. But once that awe fades, they invariably seek out evidence of the UAE’s historical and cultural legacy. Even for regular festival-goers, that rich heritage can be hard to find amid the furious pace of urban development and even harder to distinguish from the many clichés that have grown up alongside. Which is why Nasser Al Dhaheri, an Emirati writer, journalist and awardwinning photographer decided to make a feature-length documentary about his country and the roots that stretch back some 3,000 years. “My film is a story of three elements — water, palm trees and family — and how they met to establish a civilisation here that constitutes a unique culture,” says Al Dhaheri. “But other people are ignorant of that culture. They only know us through the camels, the desert and the oil. This is our real story.”
Part of a noticeably large contingent of Emirati films making their world premieres at DIFF, A Tale Of Water, Palm Trees And Family highlights the region’s ancestral dependency on two essential lifelines: water and the date palms that provide both food and materials for building houses and boats. In the Al Ain region of Abu Dhabi where Al Dhaheri was born, there is evidence of the world’s oldest known falaj — the ancient network of underground water channels that was literally carved out of rock around 1,000bc. It is testament to herculean effort — and engineering prowess — that many of these channels still remain the main source of irrigation in Al Ain today. “The work in this film took two years. We toured the Emirates from north to south and from east to west; we slept in the desert; we went out in the morning with the fishermen; we ascended mountains; and we ate in the middle of palm oases,” recalls Al Dhaheri. A storyteller by trade, his biggest challenge was not in making the transition to cinema but in finding a common language of communication with a Dutch technical crew that included cinematographer Hans Fels and editor Hans Dunnewijk. That and one memorably hot-tempered encounter. “While we were filming some bullfighting in Fujairah, we were attacked by a raging bull. Our camera was the first victim, because we all ran when we saw that bull coming at us.”
A Tale Of Water, Palm Trees And Family
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Filming in UAE, page 10
Mohamed Ouzine
Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Burying his father in Algeria prompted the French-Algerian director to make a documentary film that explores his own identity. By Colin Brown
The Turkish-French director says the production of her debut feature Mustang is itself a tale of female emancipation. Melanie Goodfellow reports
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Samir In The Dust
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ohamed Ouzine was born in France of an Algerian father and a Moroccan mother. He studied history and found his way to cinema by way of photography. Issues of identity inform many of his films. In 2003, his documentary Caravane explored the itinerant world of gypsies. His 2008 documentary Lieux Communs, which won an award at Maghreb Festival in Saint Denis, spent one afternoon with a girl and her grandmother as they talked about their origins and other shared places. Ouzine himself rediscovered the land of his parents during his father’s funeral, and has been questioning his own origins ever since. Out of that moment grew his screenplay for Tarik’s War, which won several awards including from the Beaumarchais Foundation, Festival Cinemed in Montpellier and one for promising new talent from the CNC. And now comes his documentary fea-
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ture Samir In The Dust, which receives its world premiere in the Muhr feature competition after being financed through grants from French institutions and Doha Film Institute. “I felt the necessity of this movie when I went to bury my father in his homeland,” says Ouzine. “I have never felt really attached to this land before. Before this movie, I wrote the fiction screenplay Tarik’s War and in a way, Samir In The Dust is the ‘documentary face’ of this fiction film.” His father’s burial took place in a small cemetery bordering the valley that separates Algeria from Morocco. The cemetery is named after Sidi Amar who was a marabout, the term given to Muslim leaders who either lead local religious communities or in some cases are wandering holy men. Sidi Amar himself died at the beginning of the 20th century. Returning to this place as a filmmaker brought its own challenges — and for Ouzine it raised yet more questions about identity. “There were so many memorable incidents during the filming process, because you don’t go unnoticed when you take a ride with a camera there,” he explains. “Shooting with a camera is often poorly perceived, or misunderstood, especially on the part of an emigrant, even if I’m not an emigrant. I was born and I always lived in France. My father was an emigrant, not I.”
eniz Gamze Ergüven was born in the Turkish capital of Ankara and has spent much of her life in France. She studied at the prestigious Paris film school La Fémis. Mustang, her debut feature, is France’s entry to the best foreign language film Oscar category. Her dual cultural identity is at the heart of Mustang along with a desire to explore what it means to be a girl and a woman in Turkish society. “Because I was constantly going back and forth between the two cultures, what hit me was this filter of sexualisation that governs every aspect of women’s lives in Turkey,” she explains. “It starts at a very early age, as is the case for the characters in the film.” The incidents in Mustang are based either on personal experience or research. A scene in which one of the sisters is rushed to hospital to see if her hymen is intact after she fails to bloody
the sheet on her wedding night, is based on interviews with a Turkish gynaecologist. “He told me such visits were a regular occurrence, especially during the wedding season in the spring and summer. The hospitals expect it,” she says. Ergüven credits French writer-director Alice Winocour with helping her to bring Mustang to script stage. The pair first met at Cannes’ Cinefondation l’Atelier co-production initiative in 2011. “We were the only two women out of 15 directors that year. We hit it off immediately,” says Ergüven. She had been ready to abandon filmmaking when a previous feature had failed to get off the ground after three years of work. “I’d told Alice about the treatment for Mustang. I didn’t have any key scenes and couldn’t face writing another script but she took me by the hand and said, ‘Come on.’ She helped me turn a corner.” Apart from Elit Iscan, none of the other cast members had acted before. “I wrote the script with Elit in mind and prayed she wouldn’t grow up too much before we got to shoot.” The director discovered she was pregnant just prior to the first attempted shoot. “When we finally started rolling in August, I was 13-weeks pregnant and 20 weeks when we wrapped. I remember it because shoots and pregnancy are the two things you count in weeks.”
Mustang
December 14, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 9
feature Filming in the UAE
Desert The UAE is fast becoming one of the most popular shooting destinations in the Middle East. Melanie Goodfellow follows the rising star
heat
Abu Dhabi provided stunning desert scenes for Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens
10 Screen International at Dubai December 14, 2015
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D
ubai dwellers have a new pastime: spot the film shoot. Paparazzi and smart-phoned amateurs have had plenty of choice with Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond and Jackie Chan’s action comedy Kung Fu Yoga filming concurrently in and around the city this autumn. Their arrival is one more sign of the UAE’s growing popularity as a film location. Two hours down the road, Abu Dhabi was gearing up for Brad Pitt’s Afghanistan-set war satire War Machine, which is now shooting, having housed Fast & Furious 7 and Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens in 2014. Just a three-hour flight away from Mumbai, the Gulf state is also an increasingly popular destination for Bollywood productions. Indian box-office hits Welcome Back and Happy New Year were shot in Dubai, and Abu Dhabi will welcome another potential Bollywood blockbuster, Dishoom, starring Varun Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez and John Abraham, the latest production from one of India’s oldest production companies Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment. The UAE’s progress as a shooting destination is remarkable on a number of levels, not least because the drive to entice international productions is not even a decade old. “Ten years ago everyone was hesitant about this whole project but we knew where we were heading,” says Jamal Al Sharif, chairman of the Dubai Film & TV Commission, founded in 2013. “It has developed enormously since I arrived in 2010,” says line producer Maxine de Vere, who worked on Fast & Furious 7 and managed the Kung Fu Yoga shoot. Al Sharif, who is also the managing director of content at the production hub Dubai Studio City, has been a driving force in enticing international productions to the UAE. De Vere also credits the late Tim Smythe, founding CEO of Dubai’s first major production company Filmworks, as a major force. Al Sharif and Smythe’s first joint coup was to convince Paramount to shoot part of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol in Dubai in 2010. That was the city’s Hollywood big-screen break, featuring a gravity-defying stunt by Tom Cruise high up the Burj Khalifa. That experience and Dubai’s futuristic architecture convinced executive producer Jeffrey Chernov and producer Bryan Burk to return to Dubai some five years later with Star Trek Beyond. “They knew a bit about the landscape,” says Al Sharif. “Simon Pegg, who was in the cast of Mission: Impossible and co-wrote and stars in Star Trek Beyond, also has a soft spot for Dubai.”
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Etihad Towers took centre stage for an explosive stunt in Fast & Furious 7; (below) Jackie Chan filmed Kung Fu Yoga in Dubai
It was not a done deal, however, as Paramount also scouted the South Korean capital of Seoul and Singapore before deciding on Dubai. “At a press conference ahead of the shoot, Chernov ensured Dubai’s place in Star Trek history when he declared, ‘We came searching for the future and we found it in Dubai,’” smiles Al Sharif. “The look of Dubai really fitted the film. As they were completing the script, they were liaising with the location scouts to put specific buildings into the story.” Locations included Dubai’s DIFC financial district and the Jumeirah Lake Towers neighbourhood. The production also used a 14,000 sq m soundstage at Dubai Studio City. Incentive gain Of course, it’s also about money. Saving it specifically. Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s iconic futuristic cityscapes, rolling desert landscapes and luxury hotels are not enough in themselves to entice productions in the competitive global locations business. Both emirates offer incentives: Dubai prefers tailor-made ‘soft’ solutions while Abu Dhabi has had a 30% cash rebate since 2012. “We customise our offer on a film-byfilm basis,” says Al Sharif. “We can help out on facilities, services, customs, accommodation and transportation. In total it can amount to 30%, sometimes even 50%, of costs.” Paul Baker, executive director of film and TV services at Abu Dhabi’s media and entertainment hub twofour54, which works closely with Abu Dhabi Film Commission, says the cash rebate and soft incentives, such as discounted
‘Ten years ago everyone was hesitant about this project but we knew where we were heading’ Jamal Al Sharif, Dubai Film & TV Commission
or complimentary hotel nights, always end up being paid back many times over on a number of levels. Productions come in and spend a significant amount of money in a relatively short time. “In 2014, the projects coming through the film commission added up to 15,000 hotel-room nights, which is a significant contribution to Abu Dhabi’s wider infrastructure,” he explains. A recent study by accountancy firm PwC revealed that for every AED1 ($0.27) that was invested via the cash rebate, a AED4.5 ($1.23) contribution was generated from productions shooting in the emirate. Indirect benefits also include raising the emirate’s profile around the globe and boosting tourism. Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Towers, for example, takes centre stage in Fast & Furious 7 when Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto drives a sports car off the 45th floor of the tallest of the five buildings. The fivestar Emirates Palace Hotel was also one of the film’s key backdrops. Baker is expecting the impact of Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens to be even greater following the film’s
release in December. “We’ve been tracking the press mentions of Abu Dhabi alongside Star Wars in the media and the value of that is more than $100m,” he says. But for both Al Sharif and Baker, these are fringe benefits. Enticing international productions is part of a wider strategy to create a selfsustaining media and entertainment industry. In turn, this is part of the UAE’s efforts to diversify from its reliance on oil and natural gas as chief sources of income. “Twofour54 remains very focused on the development of Abu Dhabi as a global production hub… it’s one of our core drivers,” says Baker. “In the long term, the media sector could make a significant contribution to the economy, even if at the moment it’s a minnow in a world of oil.” For Al Sharif, the arrival of international productions sets in motion a virtuous circle in which local crews gain experience, boosting the overall production scene. “Our aim is to create a vibrant enough sector that both local and expat production professionals can come and settle in Dubai in the knowledge there will be enough work,” says Al Sharif, who points out that beyond news, TV and film, Dubai is also home to the region’s main advertising hub. Can the UAE cope? As the number of major productions hitting the UAE rises, however, there are question marks over whether the country’s fledgling infrastructure has the depth to house them all. Baker says the breadth of production services and facilities in Abu Dhabi is expanding. He points to the example of Mumbai-based lighting specialist Light N Light, which recently opened a branch in Abu Dhabi, investing in a sizeable acquisition of ARRI lights for the new facility. “On my shoot with Jackie Chan, we had a Chinese camera crew and a few key people but most of our heads of department were from here as was our production team,” says de Vere, who is confident the UAE can cope. “Facilities are being developed more and more and I still see it increasing with one main facilitation company now having a number of unit trucks and gear.” Al Sharif is equally positive about the UAE’s ability to handle multiple productions at once. “When Mission Impossible shot here, the ratio of non-resident crew to Dubai resident crew was 70:30. Five years later on Star Trek Beyond, it was 40:60. That’s a big shift,” he says. “Having taken two large films in one month, while another was in pre-production down the road, we’ve proven we can s handle it.” ■
December 14, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 11
Screenings Edited by Paul Lindsell
» Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration
paullindsell@gmail.com
To save it from becoming cat food, the girls plan to release the duckling in the presence of his congeners. The two girls secretly go on a journey, chased by their anxious parents and even the police. Cinema for Children MOE 14 PUBLIC
RECOLLECTION
Festival 11:00 LAST CAB TO DARWIN
(Australia) Films Distribution. 119mins. Drama. Dir: Jeremy Sims. Cast: Michael Caton, Jacki Weaver, Ningali Lawford-Wolf. Rex, a Broken Hill cab driver, has spent his life avoiding getting close to people. Even his best friend and occasional lover Polly is kept at a distance. One day, he learns he is dying. He doesn’t want to be forced to rely on anyone, so he decides to leave home and drive alone the 3,000km across the continent to Darwin, where the recently passed euthanasia law leads him to believe he can control his own death. On this epic journey, he meets people who force him to re-evaluate. He realises that a life not shared is a life not lived. Cinema of the World Madinat Arena PRESS
15:00 A TALE OF WATER, PALM TREES AND FAMILY See box, above
DIASPORA
(Tunisia) 13mins. Animation, drama. Dir: Alaeddin Abou Taleb.
15:00 A TALE OF WATER, PALM TREES AND FAMILY
(UAE) 162mins. Documentary. Dir: Nasser Aldhaheri. Cast: Gayah Aldhaheri, Aqidah Almouhairi, Sultan Alkowaiti. A journey through the UAE, as seen through water, palm trees and
The story of a man in a wheelchair, who lives alone in his flat in Tunis. His routine consists of consuming any media, until he is surprised by an announcement about jobs. He abandons his isolation and leaves his wheelchair. Muhr Short MOE 20 PUBLIC
15:15 MY FATHER’S GARDEN
(Iraq) 13mins. Drama. Dir: Shwan Attoof. Cast: Shano Ahmed, Kamran Mansoor, Shalaw Jamal. A young Kurdish mujahid, regrets his decision to join the jihadist movement. He is torn between his father’s expectations and the mujahideen leader, and ends up a victim of his own internal turmoil. Muhr Gulf Short MOE 03 PUBLIC
12 Screen International at Dubai December 14, 2015
people. It is a moving tribute in memory of those who worked hard in the past. It serves as a reminder to future generations that today’s prosperity was made possible through the sweat and blood of their ancestors. Muhr Emirati MOE 04 PUBLIC
is on the edge and tipping over into the abyss. Muhr Feature MOE 06 PUBLIC
15:30 EL CLaSICO See box, below
16:15 BIRDS OF PASSAGE
(Belgium) Attraction Distribution. 84mins.
Drama. Dir: Olivier Ringer. Cast: Clarisse Djuroski, Lea Warny, Alain Eloy. Cathy receives a duck egg for her 10th birthday. On hatching, the duckling picks Cathy as its best friend and Margaux as its mother. Margaux is in a wheelchair and her parents refuse to allow the duck in their house.
(Palestine) 70mins. Non-fiction. Dir: Kamal Aljafari. The film-maker returns to Jaffa, as he might to any catastrophic place. He knows some places, perhaps even some people. Perhaps everything. He is me, he is my grandfather, who was on his way to Beirut and returned because there was a storm; he is a photographer, a composite of every marginal figure. Muhr Feature MOE 13 PUBLIC
16:30 IXCANUL
(France, Guatemala) Film Factory. 91mins. Drama. Dir: Jayro Bustamante. Cast: Maria Telon, Maria Mercedes Coroy, Manuel Antun. Maria, a young 17-year-
STARVE YOUR DOG
(Morocco) Paul Thiltges Distribution. 94mins. Comedy, drama. Dir: Hicham Lasri. Cast: Latefa Ahrrare, Benaissa El Jirari. Set in present-day Casablanca, when a washed-up political heavyweight comes out of hiding to confess his crimes before a camera that no-one can get to work. A hasbeen filmmaker sets out to cover a painful chapter in her country’s history by interviewing the notorious political strongman about his role in a brutal former regime. The film-maker’s glory days are as faded as the political power her subject once enjoyed. Meanwhile on the streets, a poor woman prays for an earthquake to bring about justice. Civilisation
Festival 15:30 EL CLaSICO
(Iraq, Norway, UAE) 97mins. Drama, romance. Dir: Halkawt Mustafa. Cast: Wrya Ahmed, Dana Ahmed, Kamaran Raof, Rozhin Sharifi. Alan and Shirwan, two Kurdish brothers, are on a
dangerous quest through Iraq to meet footballer Cristiano Ronaldo in Spain. Alan wants to marry his girlfriend Gona, but faces opposition from her father, Jalal. He is a Real Madrid fan and has made a pair of Kurdish slippers he dreams of gifting to Ronaldo. Alan
believes that if he takes the shoes to the footballer, he will win over Jalal. The brothers’ journey pits them against smugglers, terrorists and bureaucrats and tests their bond. Is Alan willing to risk it all for love? Muhr Feature MOE 05 PUBLIC
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and ‘daughter’, but is confronted by daily violence that reopens his war wounds. Dheepan is forced to revive his warrior’s instinct to protect his new family. Cinema of the World MOE 15 PUBLIC
PAULINA
Festival 18:30 FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN
(India, Netherlands) 86mins. Non-fiction. Dir: Rinku Kalsy. Cast: G Mani, N Ravi, Kamal Anand. For fans of the Tamil actor Rajnikanth, the line between cinema and reality is blurred. His fans, mostly men, express
old Mayan girl, lives and works with her parents on a coffee plantation on the foothills of a volcano in Guatemala. An arranged marriage awaits her. Maria dreams of going to the big city, but her status as an indigenous woman does not permit her to change her destiny. A snakebite forces her to visit the modern world where her life is saved. But at what price? Cinema of the World MOE 17 PUBLIC
18:30 FOR THE LOVE OF A MAN See box, above
THE MAN WHO BECAME A HORSE See box, right
18:45 THE RIGHT PATH
(Lebanon, Switzerland)
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their adoration through enormous posters and elaborate public rituals, as is witnessed through the frenzied atmosphere inside theatres. Fandom is about more than cinema — it is about brotherhood, identity or even social aspiration. Cinema of the World MOE 20 PUBLIC
Exit Film Production. 15mins. Action, family, war. Dir: Fouad Alaywan, Ovidio El Hout. Cast: Ovidio El Hout, Murielle Yazbeck, Nizar Ghanem. Leaving one’s land is a serious matter for the Lebanese and especially for Zacharia, who prides himself on defending his country from cross-border extremism. Yet he has no choice than to send away his family. In the name of Islam and of its blurred limits, everything collapses and one man’s fate merges with his country’s destiny. Muhr Short MOE 03 PUBLIC
SILENCE OF THE ANTS
(Iraq) Mijfilm Production. 7mins. Drama. Dir: Soran Ebrahim. Cast: Taha Aghajan, Delnya Kamosi, Chya Hawrami.
When someone has no hope and thinks death is the only solution… Muhr Gulf Short MOE 05 PUBLIC
19:00 THE DAUGHTER
(Australia) Mongrel Media. 96mins. Drama. Dir: Simon Stone. Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie, Sam Neill, Odessa Young, Paul Schneider, Miranda Otto, Anna Torv. Set in the last days of a dying logging town, Christian returns to his family home for his father Henry’s wedding. Reconnecting with his childhood friend Oliver and Oliver’s wife and daughter, he unearths a long-buried secret. As Christian tries to right the wrongs of the past, his actions threaten to shatter the lives of those he left behind years earlier. Cinema of the World Madinat Arena GALA
DHEEPAN
(France) Wild Bunch. 114mins. Drama. Dir: Jacques Audiard. Cast: Jesuthasan Antonythasan, Kalieaswari Srinivasan. To escape the civil war in Sri Lanka, Tamil freedom fighter Dheepan decides
to flee and brings with him two strangers — a woman and a little girl — hoping this new ‘family’ will improve his chances of claiming asylum in Europe. They settle in a housing project outside Paris. They barely know one another but try to build a life together. He works to provide a real home for his ‘wife’
(Argentina, Brazil, France) Versatile. 103mins. Drama. Dir: Santiago Mitre. Cast: Dolores Fonzi, Oscar Martinez, Ezequiel Diaz, Esteban Lamothe, Cristian Salguero, Veronica Llinas, Laura Lopez Moyano, Andrea Quattrocchi, Silvina Savater. Paulina abandons her successful career as a Buenos Aires lawyer to engage in social activism along the border between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. After two weeks in a neighbourhood that is scarred by poverty and marginalisation, a gang assaults her. Despite the brutal attack, Paulina resolves to stand firmly by her convictions and to survive against all odds. Cinema of the World MOE 14 PUBLIC
SAMIR IN THE DUST
(Algeria, France, Qatar) L’image d’apres. 59mins. Non-fiction. Dir: Mohamed Ouzine. A small cemetery sits in the border valley that separates Algeria and Morocco. It is called the cemetery of Sidi Amar, because this is where the marabout was laid to rest in some miserable barrack, in the form of a mausoleum. It is here that he perished at the beginning of the 20th century. He has become the confidante of the population as families ask him to intercede in their favour; women come to him in search of a husband; and a man seeks to succeed in the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean. Muhr Feature MOE 13 PUBLIC
SONG OF LAHORE
(Pakistan, US) Autlook Filmsales. 82mins. Nonfiction. Dir: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Andy Schocken. Cast: Wynton Marsalis, The Sachal Jazz Ensemble, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Follows several Pakistani
Festival 18:30 THE MAN WHO BECAME A HORSE
(Iran) Iranian Independents. 110mins. Drama. Dir: AmirHossein Saghafi. Cast: Mahmoud Nazar-Alian,
Levon Haftvan, Melissa Zakeri. A father and his daughter live together. The mother has died and there is just one white horse left for their daughter. The
father prevents her from leaving, even though she is married. The father even plans to kill his sonin-law but the girl leaves and he loses his mind. Cinema of the World MOE 06 PUBLIC
»
December 14, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 13
Screenings
105mins. Comedy, drama. Dir: Jason Bateman. Cast: Jason Bateman, Nicole Kidman, Christopher Walken. Annie and Baxter Fang have spent most of their adult lives trying to distance themselves from their famous artist parents. But when both siblings find themselves stalled in life, they return home for the first time in a decade, where they become entangled in a dark mystery surrounding their parents’ disappearance. Cinema of the World MOE 15 PUBLIC
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 See box, below
22:00 1001 INVENTIONS AND THE WORLD OF IBN AL-HAYTHAM
Festival 19:15 BEFORE THE SUMMER CROWDS
(Egypt) Mad Solutions. 90mins. Drama, Romance. Dir: Mohamed Khan. Cast: Maged El Kedwany, Hana Shiha, Ahmed Dawood. A story of summertime neighbours and voyeurs, whose characters are the bourgeoisie that swarms the Egyptian north coast. Dr Yehia and his estranged wife Magda arrive at their summer
classical musicians and asks if there is room for them in a society roiled by conflict. An unexpectedly popular jazz album brings international acclaim and a performance with Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center. However, will they ever find an audience at home? Cinema of the World The Beach PUBLIC
19:15 BEFORE THE SUMMER CROWDS See box, above
DeGRADe
(Palestine, France, Qatar) Elle Driver. 80mins. Drama. Dir: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser.
shack, weeks before the seasonal crowds. Enter Hala, their neighbour and a recently divorced mother of two. The presummer holiday they hope for turns out to be yet another backdrop for the same frustrations. Half light-hearted manifesto and half satire, Mohamed Khan gives us a film that could happen anywhere, and is equally very distinctly Egyptian. Muhr Feature MOE 17 PUBLIC
Cast: Hiam Abbass, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Manal Awad. Present day in the Gaza Strip. Christine’s beauty salon is heaving with female clients: a bitter divorcee, a religious woman, a lunatic addicted to prescription drugs and a young bride-to-be among others. But their day of leisure is disrupted when gunfire breaks out across the street. A gangland family has stolen the lion from Gaza’s zoo, and Hamas has decided it’s time to settle some old scores. Trapped in the salon, the women start to open up. Arabian Nights MOE 04 PUBLIC
14 Screen International at Dubai December 14, 2015
19:30 THE TAINTED VEIL
(UAE) 78mins. Nonfiction. Dir: Mazen Al Khayrat, Nahla Al Fahad, Ovidio Salazar. Cast: Amal, Sarah Joseph, Asmaa Abd El-Hamid, Mohamed Saeed Ramadan Al Bouti, Abdul Hakim Murad. Whether a veil of the soul, the mind or the body, the layers of the veil in history and the many meanings behind it will be revealed. Women are either judged for wearing the hijab or for not wearing it. The hijab refers to the head covering. Diverse guests debate and extraordinary stories expose the challenges surrounding these ideas.
for more than 40 years in search of a sacred plant that can heal. The film is inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes. Cinema of the World MOE 13 PUBLIC
THE FAMILY FANG
(US) Covert Media.
(UAE, UK) 1001 Inventions. 14mins. Adventure, Animation, Historical. Dir: Ahmed Salim. Cast: Omar Sharif, Macey Chipping. The fascinating story of a brave young scientist from 11th-century Arabia, Ibn Al-Haytham, who uncovers ancient mysteries that will change our world forever. This film is the final lead performance of the late Omar Sharif.
Muhr Gulf Short MOE 05 PUBLIC
GO HOME
(France, Switzerland, Belgium, Lebanon, UAE) 100mins. Drama. Dir: Jihane Chouaib. Cast: François Nour, Golshifteh Farahani, Maximilien Seweryn. Nada, a ballet dancer, leaves Paris and returns for the first time to Lebanon, the country she left when she was a child. She rediscovers her abandoned family house partially destroyed by bombing. She decides to settle in this place filled with childhood memories and sets herself a mission: to find the body of her grandfather, who vanished during the civil war. Her quest takes her the length and breadth of Lebanon, through legends and secrets. It is an introspective adventure for a young woman in search of her identity. Muhr Feature MOE 17 PUBLIC
SPOTLIGHT See box, right
22:15 BEEBA BOYS
(Canada) Mongrel Media. 103mins. Crime, drama, thriller. Dir: Deepa
Arabian Nights Madinat Theatre PUBLIC
21:45 EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT
(Colombia) Films Boutique. 122mins. Drama. Dir: Ciro Guerra. Cast: Antonio Bolivar, Nilbio Torres, Yauenkü Miguee. The epic story of the first contact, betrayal and eventually lifetranscending friendship between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, the last survivor of his people and two scientists, who travel through the Amazon
Festival 21:45 WEDNESDAY, MAY 9
(Iran) Noori Pictures. 102mins. Drama. Dir: Vahid Jalilvand. Cast: Niki Karimi, Amir Aghaei, Shahrokh Forootanian.
An unusual advertisement in one of Tehran’s morning newspapers gathers a large group of people in one place. They think that what’s been advertised is the only solution to their problem.
The police address the situation by restoring calm and dispersing the gathering. However, two women among the crowd, refuse to give up. Cinema of the World MOE 01 PUBLIC
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DIFF editorial office Press and publicity office, Madinat Jumeirah Conference Centre
DIFF dailies editor and Asia editor Liz Shackleton lizshackleton@gmail.com Reporter Melanie Goodfellow, melanie.goodfellow@ btinternet.com Reviews editor Fionnuala Halligan, finn.halligan@screendaily Contributor Colin Brown, colinbrown1@earthlink.net Features editor Louise Tutt, tuttlouise@gmail.com Production editor Mark Mowbray, mark. mowbray@screendaily.com Sub editors Paul Lindsell, Adam Richmond, Richard Young
Festival 22:00 SPOTLIGHT
(US) 123mins. Drama, biography, historical, thriller. Dir: Thomas McCarthy. Cast: Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo. The true story of how The Mehta. Cast: Randeep Hooda, Ali Momen, Sarah Allen, Waris Ahluwalia. An adrenaline-charged Indo-Canadian gang war, and a violent clash of cultures and crime. Jeet Johar and his young, loyal and often brutal gang dress like peacocks, love attention and openly compete with an old-school Indo crime syndicate to take over Vancouver’s drugs and arms scene. Blood is spilled, hearts are broken and family bonds shattered as the Beeba Boys (‘Good Boys’) do anything to be seen and to be feared in a white world. Cinema of the World Madinat Theatre PUBLIC
BLIND SUN
(Greece, France) 88mins. Drama, thriller. Dir: Joyce A Nashawati. Cast: Ziad Bakri, Giorgos
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Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and subsequent cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the Catholic Church to its core. Cinema of the World Madinat Arena PUBLIC
country. She is committed to her husband Lada and her daughter — often giving them more than they ask for — until the day Vlasta is forced to step outside of her comfort zone. Drama and gentle humour intertwine as Vlasta realises, for the first time in her life, that she
might need some care too. Cinema of the World MOE 04 PUBLIC
22:30 GOING TO HEAVEN
(UAE) Cinema Vision Art Production. 90mins. Drama. Dir: Saeed Salmeen Al Murry. Cast: Jumaa Al Zaabi, Ahmed
Al Zaabi, Fatima Altaei. Sultan seeks the warmth of his grandmother’s embrace and embarks on a journey from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah via Dubai. Muhr Emirati MOE 03 PUBLIC
LET THEM COME See box, below
Sales manager Scott Benfold, scott.benfold@screendaily. com, +44 7765 257 260 US sales and business development executive Nikki Tilmouth, nikki. screeninternational@gmail. com, +1 323 868 7633 Production manager Jonathon Cooke, jonathon. cooke@mb-insight.com Group commercial director, MBI Alison Pitchford, alison. pitchford@mb-insight.com
Gallos, Laurene Brun. A seaside resort in Greece is scorched by a heat wave. Water is scarce and violence is in the air. Ashraf, a solitary immigrant, guards a French family’s villa while they are away. In this arid land, he is stopped by a policeman for an ID check, and so pushed to start a new adventure.
Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam Printer Atlas Group, Street 26, Al Quoz 4, PO Box 14833, Dubai, +971 4 340 9895, admin@atlasgroupme.com
Arabian Nights MOE 14 PUBLIC
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HOME CARE
(Czech Republic, Slovak Republic) M-Appeal World Sales. 92mins. Drama. Dir: Slavek Horak. Cast: Alena Mihulova, Boleslav Polívka, Tatiana Vilhelmova. Vlasta is a dedicated home-care nurse, who attends to her capricious patients in the Czech wine
Commercial director Nadia Romdhani, nadia. romdhani@screendaily.com, +44 7540 100 315
Festival 22:30 LET THEM COME
(Algeria, France) KG Productions. 95mins. Drama. Dir: Salem Brahimi. Cast: Rachida Brakni, Amazigh Kateb.
A Mediterranean chronicle of a family that has been let down by history. This is the story of Yasmina and Noureddine, who have to contend with
the pressures of a domineering mother, a country that is adrift and the ruthless barbarity of extremism. Muhr Feature MOE 06 PUBLIC
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