DUBAI FILM CONNECTION The fifth annual Dubai Film Connection is spotlighting 16 dynamic new projects being developed by directors from throughout the Arab world. Melanie Goodfellow and Louise Tutt ask the film-makers for the stories behind the pitches
Mahdi Fleifel
Faiza Ambah
Maryam Jum’a
Men In The Sun
A Reverence For Spiders
The True Story Behind Me
Dir Mahdi Fleifel
Dir Faiza Ambah
Dir Maryam Jum’a
Timely tragi-comedy Men In The Sun is about two Palestinian friends who have just arrived in Athens, after a difficult clandestine journey from Lebanon. The pair, Qassim and Abu Love, are full of hope but soon discover life in the Greek capital at the height of an economic crisis is not easy. When distant cousin Shadi runs off with their money, they resort to scavenging, prostitution and petty crime to survive. Men In The Sun is the first feature-length fiction feature for Dubai-born, Palestinian film-maker Mahdi Fleifel. His credits include the feature documentary A World Not Ours about the Palestinian refugee camp Ain Al Hilweh in Lebanon, where he spent part of his childhood before moving to Denmark. The critically acclaimed documentary — recalling the summers he spent there as a child and revolving around the divergent fate of his best friend Abu Eyad who cannot get out of the camp — played at several festivals across the world including Toronto and Berlin, where it won the Peace Film Prize. “The condition of exile and how to portray it on the screen is my main concern in Men In The Sun,” says Fleifel, who graduated from the UK’s National Film and Television School in 2009. “The feeling of exile is that of solitude. Only an exile really knows this feeling, almost transcendental in form, but he or she rarely has the ability to describe it,” says Fleifel. “I want to examine emotional isolation in a world where war, peace and God have become abstract notions. My characters are drifters living at the end of the world.” The feature is co-produced by London-based Nakba Filmworks, the production company Fleifel set up in 2010 with Irish-born producer Patrick Campbell, with Danish producer Signe Byrge Sorensen’s Final Cut For Real.
Faiza Ambah was one of Saudi Arabia’s first female journalists and is a former Persian Gulf correspondent for The Washington Post. She has written her debut feature script A Reverence For Spiders with support from Sundance Institute, Doha Film Institute, Rawi-Sundance Screenwriters Lab and DIFF. The English-language project is a family drama about a devout Muslim father who moves with his wife and daughters to New York so his wife can have fertility treatment in an attempt to bear him a son. But his desire for a boy begins to overpower the family, driving a wedge between him, his wife and rebellious eldest daughter. He seeks solace in an unlikely friendship with a young Christian teenager. “I want to entertain with a compelling story that also provides a rare glimpse into the life of a conservative Muslim family,” explains Ambah. “The characters are seen from an outsider’s perspective but are never judged or condoned. I also want to reclaim the iconic images of Islam from newspaper headlines, depicting them in a more intimate and spiritual context.” SilverGrey Picture & Sound, the first fully fledged production house in Saudi Arabia, is producing Reverence. Ambah is co-directing the film with Karim Bensalah, who she met on the Rawi-Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Bensalah has directed several short films including Fatima’s Secret, which was shown in competition at Clermont-Ferrand in 2004. Ambah has also received Enjaaz funds for short film Mariam, which she plans to shoot in France, where she is now based.
The debut feature project from Jordan-born Maryam Jum’a is a 60-minute animated documentary about a young Jordanian artist called Manal, who is convinced she is a man trapped in a woman’s body. Two years in a marriage with no physical intimacy had prompted Manal to see a psychologist. A history of child molestation dating back to when she was four years old is revealed, a memory completely repressed by Manal for decades. The film’s subject is the subsequent unravelling of what happened and the trauma Manal has experienced. It is all set against the backdrop of Manal’s preparation of an art exhibition in Lebanon. “Manal takes us on a personal journey,” says Jum’a. “She shares her lowest moments in life, revealing her physical and psychological illness from gender identity disorder to borderline personality disorder through each art piece she creates, while battling for acceptance from a judgmental society.” The project is being produced by Michael Bogar and Inka Dewitz’s Berlin-based Perfect Shot Films. The company has a mandate to focus on passionate and challenging issues, something that chimed with Jum’a. “The True Story Behind Me shows the dark and hidden world of sexual molestation, a story of breaking the silence and speaking out,” she explains. “This film examines all these aspects so we can bring this dark subject into the light and potentially raise awareness of this often-neglected topic in Jordanian society and the Arab world. Unfortunately this issue is regarded as the ultimate taboo and never discussed openly.” Previous credits for Jum’a include a short documentary for the Jordanian Royal Film Commission called She The Policeman, about the personal journey of a traffic policewoman.
Men In The Sun
A Reverence For Spiders
The True Story Behind Me
Producer Signe Byrge Sorensen Production company Final Cut For Real Budget $1m Contact Signe Byrge Sorensen byrge@final-cut.dk
Producers Silvio Saade, Willy Friedman Production company SilverGrey Picture & Sound Budget $1.5m Finance raised to date $150,000 Contact Silvio Saade silvio@silvergrey.tv
Producers Michael Bogar, Inka Dewitz Production company Perfect Shot Films Budget $120,000 Contact Inka Dewitz dewitz@perfectshotfilms.com December 10, 2013 Screen International at Dubai 13 ■