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Paul Higginson (second left) and the Haddad family

US studios eye Iranian market

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Iran could become a major market for the US studios, surpassing even the UAE, if sanctions are lifted as planned under a longnegotiated nuclear deal between the country and major world powers, according to 20th Century Fox executive vice-president, EMEA, Paul Higginson.

“Let’s see what actually happens and the timeline, but as far as I’m concerned Iran is a very important potential market of 80 million people. As soon as we’re able to engage with the market, we will.” Higginson told Screen.

“Will they let us in? That’s for them to decide what they want to do. We’re available. We want to be involved in that market and we want to communicate. Communication improves understanding and we want to do business there.

“I think it would be important for the development of film, both inside and outside of Iran, if we’re engaged there. I don’t see any downside.”

Following a landmark framework deal this summer between Iran and the six world powers including Russia and the US, long-standing sanctions against Iran could be lifted as early as January.

The studio executive was speaking on the fringes of pan-Arab distributor Empire International’s annual DIFF dinner on Thursday night, a key date for all the region’s distributors and exhibitors.

One of the region’s oldest cinema companies, the Haddad family’s Dubai-based Empire International has been the official distributor for Fox in the region for 41 years, and also has long-standing contracts with Sony Pictures Releasing.

“Empire does a fabulous job for us and they are at the vanguard both in terms of marketing and exploring what can be done to push a film,” said Higginson.

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Film Bureau maps out Gulf strategy

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Former Doha Film Institute director of film financing Paul Miller and development producer Stephen Strachan are launching Abu Dhabi-based company The Film Bureau, aimed at supporting the development and financing of projects by Gulf region directors.

“The idea is to use our combined knowledge of development, education and financing, both regional and international, to help raise the bar here; gearing films, whatever their size, towards an audience and a more market-driven model of financing,” said Miller.

Its first two projects comprise an Arabic-language adaptation of Rob Meyer’s A Birder’s Guide To Every-

thing and Saudi director Shahad Ameen’s mermaid fantasy Scales, which was one of the nominees in this year’s IWC Filmmaker Award.

Strachan said the new entity would focus on script development, packaging and ultimately connecting projects with finance partners, both local and international.

“In the four years I’ve been here, I’ve seen the region mature. We’re getting much stronger scripts and writing levels have improved,” said Strachan, who headed up the development team at DFI. Miller said the company would work on a mixture of auteur and commercial projects, citing Emirati director Majid Al Ansari’s DIFF title Rattle The Cage (Zinzana) as

an example of a film they would like to emulate. “We’re also looking to work with something this culture seems to embrace — genre.

We’re looking at thrillers and even developing a car-racing picture.

We want to take stories we know are popular and give them a thumbprint from this region.”

In a third prong to its activities, the company plans to support international productions interested in accessing the Abu Dhabi rebate.

“To date, big movies such as Fast & Furious have been accessing the rebate. We’re looking to work with smaller productions that previously wouldn’t consider coming here,” said Miller.

Gareth Cattermole, Getty

Emirati features, page 10

NEWS Going global Palestinian producers create a platform to promote their cinema internationally » Page 4

FEATURE Growth industry The fledgling Emirati cinema scene is making its mark » Page 10

FORUM EVENTS 10:00 – 11:00 In conversation: Netflix live from Los Angeles with Ted Sarandos Speaker Ted Sarandos, chief content officer, Netflix

11:30 – 12:30 Fast forward: VoD and the future of Arab content Panellists Abe Aboul Naga, head of digital, MBC Group; Perihan Abou-Zeid, founder and CEO, MoviePigs; Gianluca Chakra, managing partner, Front Row Filmed Entertainment; Karim Safieddine, CEO and head of acquisitions, Cinemoz

14:00 – 15:00 Online to prime time with Abla Fahita Guest Abla Fahita, host, Live From El Duplex

15:30 – 16:30 Masterclass: indie film distribution Presenter Eve Gabereau, co-founder and managing director, Soda Pictures

Kalki Koechlin and Naseeruddin Shah, the stars of Waiting, which received its world premiere here at DIFF yesterday, with the film’s director Anu Menon. Shah is also here to receive a DIFF lifetime achievement award.

Drishyam sees poetry in Arabic-language debut

BY LIZ SHACKLETON

Indian producer-distributor Drishyam Films is in pre-production on its first Arabic-language project, Triangle, to be directed by Iranian film-maker Shahram Alidi.

The story revolves around a Palestinian woman and the challenges she must overcome to ensure her poetry is published.

Production is scheduled to start in February, in Palestine and Turkey, where the protagonist travels. The

script will also be partly Turkish language.

“The film depicts her physical and emotional journey as she attempts to achieve her dream,” said Drishyam Films founder Manish Mundra. “At Drishyam we’re focused on story-driven projects with a strong emotional connection to audiences.”

Alidi’s award-winning debut feature Whisper With The Wind, about an elderly radio operator

attempting to connect families in war-torn Kurdistan in the 1980s, premiered in Critics’ Week at Cannes in 2009.

Mundra is attending DIFF with Anu Menon’s Waiting, which he co-produced with Mumbai-based Ishka Films. He is also producing Atanu Mukherjee’s Unknown Faces, which started shooting yesterday in India with Manoj Bajpayee and Smita Tambe heading the cast.

17:00 – 18:15 Networking session: distributors and sales agents Open to DFM and DIFF delegates.

Miira Paasilinna, The Yellow Affair; Jacques Kruger, VOX Cinemas; Alaa Karkouti, MAD Solutions; Gabor Greiner, Films Boutique; Sebastien Chesneau, Cercamon; Milan Popelka, FilmNation Entertainment; Perihan Abou-Zeid, MoviePigs; Youssef El Shazli, Zawya; Eve Gabereau, Soda Pictures; Tamires Abbas, Empire; Martin Gondre, Indie Sales

20:15 – 21:15 Great adaptations: The Man Who Knew Infinity Panellists Matt Brown, director; Robert Kanigel, author, The Man Who Knew Infinity

News

DIFF picks Dubai programmers look beyond the world premieres and red-carpet galas

SUNSET SONG Based on a classic of Scottish literature, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song tells the story of a family living in rural austerity before the First World War. The cast is headed by former model Agyness Deyn, Kevin Guthrie and Peter Mullan, who drew praise for their performances when the film premiered at Toronto.

Cinema of the World director Nashen Moodley describes the film as “a visually splendid and beautifully told feminist story of a woman coming into adulthood in early 20th century Scotland and staking her independence in a changing society.

Davies’ credits include award-winning dramas such as The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Edith Wharton adaptation The House Of Mirth (2000) and Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988).

STARVE YOUR DOG DIFF Arab Programme director Antoine Khalife describes Morocco’s Hisham Lasri as one of the most original film-makers in the region “as he creates his own nightmarish world with a strongly defined aesthetic that’s completely different to classical Arab films.”

Starve Your Dog, his fifth feature and first filmed in colour, is set in present-day Casablanca where a has-been film-maker sets out to interview a former political heavyweight, who has come out of hiding to confess his crimes. “The film is a metaphor about the real-life totalitarians in our world and what happens to them when they’re not leaders any more,” Khalife says. » See screenings, from page 12

Palestinian pact is matter of Logic

By Melanie Goodfellow

Palestinian producers have teamed up to create a platform to represent their national cinema at market and festivals, which has its first outing at Dubai Film Market.

Mohanad Yaqubi of Ramallahbased Idioms Film and Raed Andoni of Les Films de Zayna in Paris are spearheading the venture called Future Logic.

The two producers say they created the platform because Palestinian film-makers are based all over the world in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East, not just in the West Bank and Gaza.

“Palestinian cinema is in a unique situation because it’s no longer connected to one place. Its film-makers are a diverse bunch, living all over the world with dif-

Ibrahim

ferent life experiences,” said Andoni. “Sometimes they live in the West Bank or Gaza; often they’re part of the diaspora. We’re trying to bring all these fragments under one roof. It’s hard for official Palestinian bodies to represent all Palestinian film-makers because they’re restricted to supporting those in the West Bank or Gaza.”

Future Logic’s first concrete action has been to create a catalogue showcasing five upcoming productions by Palestinian filmmakers with the aim of attracting potential partners at festivals and markets.

The first five projects comprise Lina Al Abed’s documentary Ibrahim, Basma Alsharif ’s Ouroboros,

Jamal Mahjoub’s Reservation Zed, Mahdi Fleifel’s The Return and Alaa Ashkar’s You Reap What You Sow. Beirut-based, Damascus-raised Al Abed’s documentary Ibrahim, capturing the search for her Palestinian militant father who went missing in the late 1980s, is also being presented at Dubai Film Connection.

Other companies attached to the initiative, sponsored by the Bank of Palestine, include Freebird Films, Nakba FilmWorks, MOMENTO! and Sak A Do Production.

After Dubai, Yaqubi and Andoni plan to take the initiative to Cannes and possibly Toronto.

In the long run, the pair hopes the hub will morph into a fully fledged Palestinian film institute, which is non-existent at present.

Arab film-makers urged to know their networks

By Colin Brown

Arab film-makers would benefit more from the ever-rising demand for localised content on regional television if they did even the most basic homework about the networks to which they pitch.

Commissioning editors at OSN, MBC and Al Jazeera, three of the regional broadcasting powerhouses, all bemoaned the general lack of market understanding at a Forum panel here yesterday.

“Producers lack data and knowledge about what broadcasters are looking for. Their proposals are not based on proper analysis.

They need to tell me the unique selling points of their show and why it will be different from oth-

ers,” suggested Khulud Abu Homos, executive vice president of programming and creative services at pay-TV network OSN. “Their pitches should also tell me why their show would be successful on my platform, rather than any other, because every network is different. You need to be a consumer to be a good producer.”

In common with broadcasters around the world, OSN faces a challenge attracting younger viewers whose viewing habits have switched to online and mobile platforms. This shift means the new generation of filmmakers are not watching the medium to which they are trying to pitch, noted Lina Matta, senior

Khulud Abu Homos

channel manager at several networks across the MBC Group.

With oil prices down and Saudi Arabia, their largest market, ensnared in a war, Matta foresees a year of belt-tightening at the adsupported network. “We are going to be more particular about what we choose to produce or

acquire. We will be a lot more picky.”

The political complexities and cultural nuances across the Arab world is one reason why Al Jazeera insists on working with journalists and documentarymakers with local understanding.

Bilaal Hoosein, executive producer at Al Jazeera’s reversioning programs directorate, said occasionally these local talents are paired up with experienced filmmakers from the West.

“This combination produces much better product. But we shy away from doing the opposite — what we won’t do is parachute in journalists from Europe,” said Hoosein.

Enjaaz throws weight behind 15 DIFF titles

By Liz Shackleton

DIFF has confirmed its production and post-production fund Enjaaz has backed 15 films in this year’s programme, including Going To Heaven, from Emirati film-maker Saeed Salmeen Al Murry.

Al Murry’s film, about an 11-year-old boy who sets off across the UAE in search of his grandmother, is one of five Emirati features screening at this year’s DIFF. It received a $100,000

4 Screen International at Dubai December 12, 2015

grant from the UAE’s Ministry of Interior at the festival last year.

Enjaaz has also supported 10 films that are screening in DIFF’s Muhr Feature competition: 23 Kilometres directed by Noura Kevorkian, 3000 Nights from Mai Masri, Omar Sharqawi’s Al Medina, Rifqi Assaf ’s The Curve, Halkawt Mustafa’s El Clasico, Fares Naanaa’s Borders Of Heaven, Afraa Batous’ Skin, Jihane Chouaib’s Go Home, Mahmood

Soliman’s We Have Never Been Kids and Hakim Belabbes’ Weight Of The Shadow.

The fund has also backed three short films in the DIFF programme: Smell Of Bread from Emirati film-maker Manal Ali Bin Amro; Iraqi film-maker Rizgar Husen’s The Boss and Saudi filmmaker Faiza Ambah’s Mariam.

Enjaaz also supported Hany Abu-Assad’s The Idol, which premiered at Toronto International

Film Festival and is screening in DIFF’s The Beach sidebar.

“DIFF’s Enjaaz programme has been providing crucial support to the regional film industry for almost a decade,” said DIFF artistic director Masoud Amralla Al Ali. “It is the proud supporter of many award-winning films that have been showcased here, and we’re honoured to have been a part of those films as they flourish on a regional and global stage.”

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Reviews Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan finn.halligan@screendaily.com

Before The Summer Crowds Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

The Curve Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan The Curve is a tiny film with big emotions — a road trip across Jordan in a VW camper van where the displaced occupants speak hauntingly of places they will never reach again. There are moments that single this out as a directorial debut of note, and Rifqi Adnan Assaf ’s screenplay is very special. He isn’t always sure of his feet onscreen, however, and even at 81 minutes The Curve experiences some bumpy terrain, but this is a lyrical start to Assaf ’s career on features after three impressive shorts.

Sold by MAD Solutions, the film will find a reception in the Middle East, particularly with those who are displaced. Improved subtitling may lift some of the fogginess around the final sequence, although Assaf would like this voyage to be shrouded in mystery. Talent trackers should also pay attention to the Jordanian director’s ability to draw touching performances from his actors, which include Paradise Now’s Ashraf Barhom in the lead role.

Radi (Barhom) lives alone in a camper van. We never learn why he has ended up here, eating food from a tin in his carefully arranged living quarters, but he’s a damaged soul and flashbacks indicate he may have had a partner, and definitely a son, who are no longer with him.

The talkative Laila (Fatina Laila), meanwhile, hastily jumps into an Amman taxi bound for Syria and is rescued by Radi when her decision proves predictably rash.

Sami (Mazen Moadam) is an exiled Lebanese TV director whose car breaks down and he is picked up by the couple.

Eventually a nosy Jordanian policeman also hops on board, squeezing exposition out of the other passengers.

It turns out driver Radi is a Palestinian exile, born in Amman but living in a Jenin camp; Laila is also Palestinian, but returning to her family in the Yarmouk camp in Syria after a bad marriage in Jordan; and Sami, the director’s alter ego, is fleeing a Lebanon where it was impossible for him to work.

The Curve is both haunted and haunting; schoolboys and soldiers by the side of the road seem like fragments of a memory, and although Radi’s own flashbacks are less visually effective, they do lead the film around its endless circle of loss. Digital camerawork by Piotr Jaxa is very effective in its immediacy, placing the principals in clear relief against their land of exile.

6 Screen International at Dubai December 12, 2015

Muhr Feature UAE-Egy-Fr-Jor. 2015.

80mins Director/screenplay Rifqi Adnan Assaf Production company The Imaginarium Films International sales MAD Solutions, info@ mad-solutions.com Producers Rula Nasser Cinematography Piotr Jaxa Editor Doaa Fadel Music Suad Bushnaq Main cast Ashraf Barhom, Fatina Laila, Mazen Moadam, Ashraf Telfah

Veteran director Mohamed Khan has fashioned a deceptively light ensemble piece in Before The Summer Crowds, which he serves up as a wry satire on the self-centred middle classes occupying Egypt’s ‘first row’. This is specialist fare, but its seaside setting, breezy insouciance and sharp undertow could see Summer Crowds achieve further festival berths after its Dubai world premiere.

Khan’s Factory Girl (2011) was considered a critical disappointment but scored well in play across the Middle East; Summer Crowds may reverse that fate. Its central female character is, unexpectedly, neither heroic nor nice nor particularly downtrodden. Hala (enjoyably played by Hana Shiha) is instead a needy, negligent recently divorced mother with an attractive pout and a line in sexy swimsuits (the screenplay is by Ghada Shahbander and not Khan’s usual creative partner Wessam Suleiman).

Hala comes to the attention of the casually lecherous Dr Yehia Elkady (Cairo 678’s Maged El Kedwany, another good performance) when she arrives out of season at a coastal resort near Alexandria. As Yehia’s overweight and overlooked wife Magda (Lana Mushtaq) says: “Nobody comes here at this time of year unless they’re hiding from something or looking for someone.”

Hala has come to her holiday home at this beautiful beach for a secret assignation with her lover, who turns out to be a jobbing actor named Hesham (Hany El Metennawy). He’s also past his prime, wearing a wig and hitting the Absolut Raspberry after breakfast.

Everyone has their secrets: the blustery, bumptious Dr Elkady is avoiding his casual mis-management of a Cairo health clinic that is facing down a lawsuit. Magda, who meditates her way out of her husband’s viewing of bikini-clad lovelies online, wakes up at night to guzzle chocolate spread straight from the jar despite her insistence on eating only “salads and stewed, bland food”.

And then there’s Gom’aa (Ahmed Dawood), the houseboy watching these people from Cairo as they go about their snobbish business. The resort looks lovely before the summer crowds, and after them too, in a sneakily uplifting codicil that makes Khan’s intentions quite clear if they weren’t already. This is a small, wellimagined world, lit and shot with a breath of fresh air.

Muhr Feature Egy. 2015. 90mins Director Mohamed Khan Production companies Middle West Films, Film Clinic, The Producers, Wika Production and Distribution, MAD Solutions International sales MAD Solutions, info@ mad-solutions.com Producers Wael Omar, Mohammed Hefzy, Hani Osama Screenplay Ghada Shahbander Cinematography Victor Credi Editor Dina Farouk Music Layal Watfeh Production design Hend Haider Main cast Maged El Kedwany, Hana Shiha, Ahmed Dawood, Hany El Metennawy, Lana Mushtaq

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Dubai Film Connection, page 8

Parisienne Reviewed by Lisa Nesselson

Go Home Reviewed by Wendy Ide Beirut-born film-maker Jihane Chouaib wrote and directed this study of modern day Lebanon, which deals with the legacies of conflict, displacement and the unreliable nature of memory. A powerhouse performance from Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani (About Elly, Eden) drives this impressive feature debut.

Farahani plays Nada, a young woman raised in France who returns to the home in rural Lebanon that her family left when she was a young child. She has been summoned out of a sense of duty to pay her respects to a dying great aunt. But once back, she is drawn to the deserted family home, which bears the scars of looting and worse. There are secrets hiding in this house, she realises. And her best chance to unearth the truth about what happened to her beloved grandfather is to stay in the gutted shell of a building.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Her naturally abrasive personality, combined with a growing conviction that the neighbours in the village have no great love for her family, mean she has trouble assimilating.

But Nada is not easily dissuaded. She hears stories of entire families dispatched in a furious hammer attack; and fragments of memory trouble her like half-recalled refrains from a song she can’t quite place.

Then her brother Sam (Maximilien Seweryn) arrives.

He’s handsome, charming and easy-going, while she is intense and secretive. The local men warm to him in a way they didn’t to her. Chouaib dispenses a curt lesson in Lebanese gender politics here.

The mercurial and rather complicated relationship between the siblings is one of the film’s main pleasures.

They are combative and competitive; their bickering frequently takes on a physical element, and this in turn occasionally reveals the flicker of a tacit sexual tension.

The chemistry between the leads drives the film even when the screenplay loses momentum after a few too many false starts. This is a film that might have benefited from a tighter edit and shorter running time. However the atmospheric production design — the house in particular is a mournful, slightly oppressive presence throughout the film — and Farahani’s magnetic screen presence mean we are inclined to forgive any imperfections.

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Muhr Feature Fr-Switz-Bel-Leb. 2015.

110mins Director/screenplay Jihane Chouaib Production company Paraiso Production Diffusion International sales Paraiso Films, info@ paraisoproduction.fr Producers Nathalie Trafford, Marie Besson, Samuel Tilman Cinematography Tommaso Fiorilli Editor Ludo Troch Production design Zeina Saab de Melero, Hayla Saab de Melero Music Mahmoud Turkmani, Béatrice Wick Main cast Golshifteh Farahani, Maximilien Seweryn, Francois Nour

Muhr Feature

Utterly bittersweet, sexy in places and brutal in others, Danielle Arbid’s Parisienne (Peur De Rien) is both educational and entertaining as it follows an 18-year-old woman who arrives in Paris from Beirut in 1993 and tries to fit in. The Lebanon-born, France-based writerdirector’s semi-autobiographical tale is anchored by splendid newcomer Manal Issa, whose administrative and romantic travails as budding student Lina ring true.

This is a modest but affecting personal odyssey laced with hope and humour.

Few refugees are as physically lovely as Issa, but any foreigner contemplating the labyrinth of permissions when seeking legal clearance to stay in France will find this a perversely funny primer on Gallic idiosyncrasies, as well as a love letter to why braving such complications might be worthwhile.

Lina arrives in a Paris suburb to stay with her aunt and uncle while she attempts to qualify for the official documents that will permit her to enrol in a French university. But when her uncle tries to force himself on her, Lina announces she is heading to the capital on her own. It’s a move as foolish as it is necessary.

In her daunting search for housing, Lina is befriended by an adorably sincere royalist whose unlikely boyfriend is a skinhead. An under-the-table job turns abruptly sour.

Lina doesn’t have a burning desire to pursue any particular field of study, but she wanders into an art history lesson held by Mme Gagnebin (the effortlessly excellent Dominique Blanc). Any viewer who isn’t allergic to 20th century art will want to fight for a spot in that classroom, too. The first assignment is to write down a list of what’s “ugly”. Lina writes out one frank, telling sentence: “So far, I find everything ugly.”

Wealthy married man Jean-Marc (Paul Hamy) spots Lina and seduces her in the way we expect from a wellheeled cad who meets a lovely newcomer to his fair city (pricey victuals, ravishment on office surfaces). But as it is the late 20th century, this won’t be her downfall — just a stepping stone to further sexual experiences with other suitors. These include a flakey musician-cum-drugdealer and the boisterously irreverent editor of a student newspaper (Vincent Lacoste).

Fr. 2015. 119mins Director Danielle Arbid Production companies Les Films Pelléas, Quick Motion, Orjouane Productions, Jouror Films International sales Films Boutique, info@ filmsboutique.com Producers David Thion, Philippe Martin Screenplay Danielle Arbid, Julie Peyr Cinematography Hélene Louvart Editor Mathilde Muyard Production design Charlotte De Cadeville Main cast Manal Issa, Paul Hamy, Vincent Lacoste, Damien Chapelle, Dominique Blanc, India Hair, Elina Löwensohn

December 12, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 7

dubai film connection

Pagan Magic

Wajib

My Favorite Fabric

Dir Fyzal Boulifa

Dir Annemarie Jacir

Dir Gayaneh Jiji

Project’s country of origin Morocco

Project’s country of origin Palestine

Project’s country of origin Syria

Raised in the UK by a Moroccan mother, Fyzal Boulifa made his mark on the global festival circuit with the Morocco-set, Bafta-nominated short The Curse, about a woman followed home by a small boy after a meeting with her lover, and Rate Me, a portrait of a teenage escort that premiered in the short film section of Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in May. Pagan Magic will be Boulifa’s feature-length debut and draws again on his split Moroccan-UK cultural identity. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Morocco, it is about a 12-year-old village girl, Soussen, who undergoes a witchcraft ceremony to protect her virginity before going to work for a middle-class family as a domestic servant. When her mother abandons the girl, Soussen’s only adult reference in the city is Aicha, the shawafa (or witch) who performed the ritual.

“Witchcraft is still part of the fabric of everyday life for Moroccans, particularly women,” says Boulifa. “In fact, the ‘witch’ is a particularly pervasive stereotype of Moroccan women, especially in other parts of the Arab world. My mother’s childhood was marked by these kinds of rituals and for me, growing up in England, they were always fascinating.

“For me, magic comes from a different notion of ‘self’ to what we’ve become used to in the West, a ‘self’ that’s at the mercy of unseen forces. Whereas in the ‘enlightened’ West, we’re entirely responsible for our own experience.”

Boulifa plans to shoot in Morocco and in black and white. “[This] creates a distancing effect; the psychological conditions for what may or may not be magic,” he explains. “I’m interested in robbing Morocco of its colour, forcing us to re-see it.”

Melanie Goodfellow

Following her award-winning 2012 film When I Saw You, a coming-of-age tale about a young boy who finds a haven in a Palestinian fedayeen camp in Jordan in the late 1960s, Annemarie Jacir is turning to contemporary Palestinian society for her new feature, the dark comedy Wajib. Set in Nazareth, Wajib follows a divorced father in his mid-60s as he spends a day with his estranged son, delivering invitations to his daughter’s wedding. The son has returned home from Rome for the celebration and will be played by Jacir’s long-time collaborator Saleh Bakri. Casting of the other characters is under way.

It is the first time Jacir, who was born and grew up in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, has shot a film about the Palestinian population living within Israel’s 1948 borders. “It’s a small story about two grown men trying to come to terms with each other and their choices in life,” she explains. “However, the background deals with the small minority of Palestinians who managed to remain in their homeland.

“The story takes place in Nazareth, a city that feels like a ghetto, within a community struggling to survive. Some of its residents are undergoing an identity crisis; others fight the oppression while others live in denial of it. It’s a divided city, one dealing with immense economic and social pressures. I’m interested in exploring these tensions, the hypocrisies and the sadness, but I also find a great deal of humour in that world and a spirit of survival which I admire.”

Jacir plans to shoot in Nazareth, despite the recent flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pointing out she shot her early short Like Twenty Impossibles in Ramallah at the height of the Second Intifada.

Melanie Goodfellow

Written in Damascus in the early days of Syria’s illfated pro-democracy uprising in 2011, My Favorite Fabric transposes a Belle De Jour-style story to the suburbs of the Syrian capital. The story follows a bored fashion-store assistant who takes a room in a neighbour’s brothel. “I want to tell a story about a young woman who explores her desires beyond the norms dictated by society,” says Gayaneh Jiji. “When I started writing, it was at the very beginning of the uprising. This chaos consumed and inspired me throughout the writing of the screenplay. It’s a reflection on Syrian society, on its politics and the psychological impact this has on a young girl.”

Jiji and her producer Tatiana Bouchain at Parisbased Iliade & Films are looking to shoot the film in either Lebanon or Turkey; the cast will be Syrian.

My Favorite Fabric will be Jiji’s debut feature-length film following a trio of shorts including Morning, Noon, Evening… And Morning, which screened at festivals worldwide.

The director says she would not have been able to think about making the film if she were still living in Syria. “I wrote the film in Syria but I knew I had to find a French production company,” she says. “It would have been impossible for a Syrian or Arab production company to produce it.”

Prior to being presented at DFC, the project has also taken part in the 2013 Mediatalent Workshop in Ouarzazate, won a grant from Amiens International Film Festival in France and was selected for La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde at Cannes in 2014. It also received the support of France’s CNC in July.

Melanie Goodfellow

Wajib

My Favorite Fabric

Producer Ossama Bawardi Production companies Philistine Films (Pal), Una Film (Ger), Ape&Bjorn (Nor) Budget $730,000 Finance raised to date $255,000 Contact Ossama Bawardi info@philistinefilms.org; ossama_b@hotmail.com

Producers Tatiana Bouchain (Iliade & Films) Production companies Iliade & Films (Fr), Ibarra Films (Fr), Orjouane Productions (Leb) Budget $1.2m Finance raised to date $220,000 Contact Tatiana

Pagan Magic Producer Louise Bellicaud Production companies In Vivo Films (Fr), Vega Prod (Fr) Budget $1m Finance raised to date $150,000 Contact Louise Bellicaud louise@invivofilms.com

8 Screen International at Dubai December 12, 2015

Bouchain

tatianabouchain@gmail.com

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Director interviews

Noura Kevorkian

Omar Shargawi

The Lebanese director tells Melanie Goodfellow why a very personal film about her father’s illness is a metaphor for the state of her homeland

The Danish-Palestinian film-maker was inspired by dark days — with echoes of the Dogme movement — for his latest film Al Medina. Colin Brown reports

B

23 Kilometres

L

ebanese director Noura Kevorkian’s 23 Kilometres explores living with Parkinson’s disease.

Screening in the Muhr feature competition, the film is a portrait of an elderly man who is fighting the illness, and ties in the fractured state of his mind with that of his native Lebanon.

“It is an impressionistic, experiential essay film where the audience gets to experience what it would feel like to have Parkinson’s disease,” says Kevorkian.

The director’s inspiration comes from first-hand experience of her father’s battle with the disease over a 20-year period. The title 23 Kilometres refers to a weekly trip he took along the Bekaa Valley stretch of the biblical Damascus Road, from their home village to the area’s main town. As a young child, Kevorkian would accompany him as a special treat.

The hybrid work juxtaposes real-life footage of the father as he struggles with

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the illness, alongside images of him as he undertakes his favourite trip one last time, stopping off in places of importance in his life such as the foundry he ran. There are also reconstructions of the past, with Kevorkian’s young daughter playing the film-maker and an actor playing her father.

In one haunting scene Kevorkian’s father walks down a path, side by side with his younger self and the filmmaker as a child. The reconstructions are shot in bright, lurid colours in contrast to the real-life scenes. Kevorkian explains this was an attempt to capture the hallucinations her father experienced due to the illness.

“Everyone knows about the physical impact of the disease — how it makes people tremor — but I was more interested in the psychological state, the hallucinations and the sense of loneliness, the isolation and imprisonment that victims suffer.”

The film reflects on how the state of her father’s mind is in sync with the state of Lebanon. “My father lost 20 years of his life to war,” Kevorkian says. “As he makes the journey in the film, he thinks about his life, his past, and the civil war and his personal journey. That journey and the country’s journey are tied together. You realise that his body, which is full of disease and rotting from the inside, is very much in parallel to the state of his beloved country, Lebanon.”

orn of a Danish mother and a Palestinian father, former photographer Omar Shargawi was raised in Copenhagen. Appropriately enough, Al Medina, his provocative new film that examines the limits of man’s faith when facing the extremities of human endurance, echoes the Danish Dogme-style of drama.

Autobiographical elements also proved crucial to the story. “Some years ago I had an experience that made me lose all hope and faith in life. This dark period was the key to my story. I wish for no man to fall into this trap, though I know this is what many people do,” says Shargawi, who previously directed Go With Peace Jamil, which won a Tiger award at Rotterdam, and award-winning documentaries My Father From Haifa and ½ Revolution.

“The ultimate test in life is to be lost in

the dark with nothing to hold on to,” he adds. “Still there might be light at the end of the tunnel. There might be something bigger than ourselves that adjusts the balance and brings us back to life — even when we’re lost.”

The screenplay was originally conceived as an Egyptian story but then switched to the story of a man — played

by Shargawi himself — who returns with his pregnant Danish wife to his Arab birthplace only to end up in prison after being unintentionally responsible for the death of a beggar boy. “The film’s journey is a script in of itself,” says Shargawi. “I can mention some key words that almost put the film, that was originally supposed to be shot in Cairo, in the grave — a revolution, a coup d’état and the death of my father. Blessings came when we moved the production to Jordan — only having a bit more than a month to prepare everything and adjusting everything to Amman instead of Cairo.”

Financial support for the film, which is screening at DIFF as a world premiere in the Muhr feature competition, came through the Danish Film Institute and Danish national television, with Nordisk Film Production serving as executive producer. Dubai’s Enjaaz also contributed as did the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture. Instrumental, too, was Jordanian producer Rula Nasser.

Al Medina

December 12, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 9

FEATURE FILM-MAKING IN UAE

Rattle The Cage (Zinzana)

Rattle and roll

An unprecedented five Emirati feature films are screening at DIFF this year as the UAE’s fledgling film scene goes from strength to strength. Melanie Goodfellow reports

F

rom the UAE’s first genre picture, the thriller Rattle The Cage (Zinzana), to short documentary Omnia, which explores the subject of female genital mutilation in the Middle East, Emirati film-makers are out in force at this year’s festival. Five local features and a further seven shorts, as well as a handful of documentaries are screening.

The 12-year-old festival has grown handin-hand with the Emirati film scene — some say it is too soon to call it an industry.

“We’ve achieved a lot in a short time and the amount of film activity today is astonishing, but we do not have a film industry yet,” says Nawaf Al Janahi, director of one of the UAE’s first feature films, 2009’s The Circle.

“Using such a term would be inaccurate and misleading. We’ve produced around 25 features to date — some are well made, some are not — but it’s not about numbers or names, it’s about building a lasting foundation for an industry that can sustain itself and grow. This takes time and effort.”

Others are more bullish. “We have crossed a critical line from an emerging industry to the early stages of an industry,” says Michael Garin, CEO of Image Nation, the film and TV production company created by the government-backed Abu Dhabi Media Company to help build an audiovisual industry in the UAE.

10 Screen International December 12, 2015

Much of the company’s work until now, he says, has been about nurturing and mentoring Emirati film-making talent from scratch. “Money is not the scarce commodity here,” Garin points out. “Experience and mentors are what are lacking. There is a rich tradition of oral storytelling in the UAE but no tradition of visual storytelling.”

Dedicated effort Image Nation organises internships, sends promising directors to institutions such as Tisch School of the Arts in New York, organises placements for young Emiratis on the sets of the increasing number of international productions passing through the UAE and even sets up one-on-one scriptdoctor sessions with experts in Los Angeles.

“We’ve touched some 350 people,” says Garin. “It has been five years of dedicated effort and we’re beginning to see the results.

For the very first time, I can look a recent university graduate in the eye and encourage them to join this industry in the knowledge it will give them the same economic rewards as a job with the government or other parts of the private sector.”

One such filmmaker who took this leap of faith is

‘We’ve crossed a critical line from an emerging industry to the early stages of an industry’ Michael Garin, Image Nation

Sea Shadow

Majid Al Ansari, director of Rattle The Cage.

He believes the country’s industry is moving in the right direction. Well, his family does at least. “When I first started trying to break into film, my family were like, ‘What are you doing? Why don’t you become a doctor or a lawyer?’,” says Al Ansari. They don’t ask him that question any more.

A turning point came when he took his mother to see Ali Mostafa’s City Of Light at the Mall of the Emirates during the 2009 edition of DIFF. “As we went up the famous escalator, she kept saying, ‘Why don’t we watch an American film? Arab films are no good’,” he remembers. “I was really nervous the whole way through. When the lights came up, she had tears in her eyes. She turned to me and said, ‘So when am I going to see your name up there?’”

It is six years later and now she will. Al Ansari’s debut feature Rattle The Cage received its UAE premiere on Thursday (December 10), having already played at the BFI London Film Festival and the Fantastic Fest in Austin.

The real game-changer for Al Ansari, however, was securing an internship at Image Nation. Spotting his potential, the company employed Al Ansari on the business side, giving him a grounding in the mechanics of the film business and the time to read scripts.

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Image Nation

EMIRATI FILMS AT DIFF

Going To Heaven

(Top) Directors Ali Mostafa and (above) Nawaf Al Janahi are two of the young film-makers forging a career in the fledgling Emirati film industry

It was at Image Nation he came across the screenplay for Rattle The Cage, by US writing duo Lane and Ruckus Skye. He was captivated by the prison-set psychological thriller, originally set in the US. “I thought if we could do this in Arabic and in the region, this would be a kick-ass film,” says Al Ansari. “This is what we did, working for four months on and off with the writers, via e-mail and Skype.”

With the support of Image Nation producer Rami Yasin and head of narrative Ben Ross, Al Ansari found himself on a set in Jordan a few months later, directing Palestinian stars Saleh Bakri (Salvo, When I Saw You) and Ali Suliman, who won the best actor prize at DIFF in 2011 for his performance in The Last Friday. “In the beginning it was very intimidating but everyone was very collaborative,” says Al Ansari.

City Of Light director Mostafa says the strategy of taking genres usually associated with the US and adapting them to the region is a step in the right direction for local film-makers.

“Taking these genre films and ‘Arabising’ them is a cool move,” he says. “The local market is used to watching studio

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films and genre films in the English language; now we’re trying to make our own genre films that are of a high calibre in Arabic. That’s something so fresh and new. I’m curious to see how Rattle The Cage does.”

Mostafa is in the throes of post-production of The Worthy, his third feature following City Of Light and last year’s pan-Arab road movie From A To B, which also screened in London.

“It’s a post-apocalyptic, Arabic-language action thriller so completely different from what I’ve done in the past,” the director says of The Worthy.

Al Janahi, whose second film Sea Shadow was also backed by Image Nation, believes more producers and additional sources of private finance are needed.

“I’m very optimistic about the next 10 years,” he says. “If the private sector gets into film production soon, we could see a solid self-sustaining film industry established in half s that time.” ■ (Right) Majid Al Ansari

Leading the Emirati charge at DIFF is Majid Al Ansari’s psychological — and brutal — thriller Rattle The Cage (Zinzana). It co-stars Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri as a man imprisoned for drunken and disorderly behaviour, who finds himself in the clutches of a sadistic police office played by Ali Suliman.

Saeed Salmeen Al Murry’s Going To Heaven is about an 11-year-old boy with a cruel stepmother, who sets off across the UAE in search of his dead grandmother. It is Al Murry’s first feature after the short Bint Mariam, about a girl forced to marry a man many years her senior.

It won the Muhr Emirati Competition in 2008.

Further Emirati features here include Humaid Al Suwaidi’s Abdullah, about a young man’s struggle to become a classical musician in the face of opposition from his religious family; Abdulla Al Kaabi’s Only Men Go To The Grave, which is a mystery about a blind widow; and Nasser Aldhaheri’s documentary feature A Tale Of Water, Palm Trees And Family, a look at the UAE’s land, people and culture.

In the short film selection, Aisha

Abdullah

Al Zaabi, whose film The Other Dimension won at DIFF in 2014, returns with My Dear Home With Love, about a nine-year-old girl reeling from the shock of a move away from her childhood home, who embarks on a dangerous journey in search of a friend she left behind.

Sarra Alshehhi’s Open Wounds is about a girl who learns how to box in order to exact revenge on an abusive uncle, and Abdulrahman Al Madani’s Beshkara is the story of a Filipina maid who is desperate to return home on discovering she is terminally ill but is barred from doing so by her UAE employer.

A Tale Of Water, Palm Trees And Family

December 12, 2015 Screen International 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

Alshami, Housin Alghajar.

Follows the director’s personal journey through vivid memories of two of her closest friends, Hussein and Soubhi, living in politically and socially tiring times. She documents their gradual collapse, which, as she realises later, reflects her own inner collapse.

Muhr Feature MOE 13 PUBLIC

VICTORIA

Festival 10:30 SAVVA. HEART OF THE WARRIOR

(Russia) Highland Film Group. 81mins.

Adventure, animation.

Dir: Max Fadeev.

A fairytale that follows a 10-year-old boy, Savva, as he sets off to free his village from the vicious hyenas. His journey takes him into a magical world, filled with memorable characters: the white wolf Angee; a hilarious pink creature Puffy; a strange looking semi-baron Fafl and his passenger; as well as Nanty, the Shaman’s charming daughter. His new friends accompany Savva as he discovers terrifying secrets and fights against the monkey army. A story about a big dream, true friendship and the power of the heart.

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14:00 THE ENDLESS RIVER

(France, South Africa) Urban Distribution International. 110mins.

Drama. Dir: Oliver Hermanus. Cast: Denise Newman, Clayton Evertson, CrystalDonna Roberts, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Darren Kelfkens, Katia Lekarski.

A young waitress welcomes her husband home to the small South African town of Riviersonderend (Endless River) after his four-year jail sentence.

At first it appears their plans for a new life together are finally being realised. But when the family of a foreigner living on a nearby farm is brutally murdered, the young woman and the grieving widower begin to gravitate towards each other. Trapped in a cycle of violence and bloodshed, the two form an unlikely bond seeking to transcend their mutual anger, pain and loneliness.

14:15 SUNSET SONG

(Luxembourg, UK) Fortissimo Films.

135mins. Drama, historical, romance, war. Dir: Terence Davies. Cast: Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan, Kevin Guthrie.

At once epic in emotional scale and deeply romantic at its core, given power by Terence

VALLEY OF KNIGHTS: MIRA’S MAGICAL CHRISTMAS

(Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia) Cercamon.

123mins. Drama. Dir: Dalibor Matani. Cast: Goran Markovic, Tihana Lazovic, Nives Ivankovic.

Three love stories set over three consecutive decades in two neighbouring Balkan villages burdened with a long history of inter-ethnic hatred. This is a film about the dangers — and the enduring strength — of forbidden love.

(Norway) Sola Media.

94mins. Adventure, family, fantasy, drama.

Dir: Thale Persen.

Cast: Nils Jorgen Kaalstad, Kyrre Hellum, Tone Mostraum, Stella Stenman.

In the magical world behind the never-ending forest lies an evil lord eager to rule the Valley of Knights. He steals an almost-complete magic suit of armour and is determined to hunt down the young queen for the only missing part: the snow-making glove. But two courageous children from our world are coming to her rescue.

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Cinema for Children Madinat Arena GALA

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THE HIGH SUN

12 Screen International at Dubai December 12, 2015

Davies’ unflinching poetic realism. ‘Sunset Song’ takes place during the early years of the 20th century, with the conflicts and choices a young woman experiences reflecting the struggle between tradition and change; a struggle that continues to resonate today.

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14:15 THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER

(France, Hungary, UK) Protagonist Pictures.

116mins. Drama, horror, mystery.

Dir: Brady Corbet.

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Liam Cunningham, Berenice Bejo, Stacy Martin, Yolande Moreau, Tom Sweet.

An American family settles in the French countryside at the end of the First World War, where the father is involved in the peace negotiations around the Treaty of Versailles.

His wife is a devout Christian, who struggles with the tantrums of their defiant young son, whose willful outbursts

begin to demonstrate a monster in the making.

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SUNSET SONG See box, left

14:30 THE ASSASSIN

(China, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan) Wild Bunch. 105mins. Action, Drama. Dir: Hou HsiaoHsien. Cast: Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumabuki.

Set in ninth century China, a general’s 10-year-old daughter Nie Yinniang is abducted by a nun who initiates her into the martial arts and transforms her into an exceptional assassin charged with eliminating cruel and corrupt local governors. One day, having failed in a task, she is sent back by her mistress to the land of her birth, with orders to kill the man to whom she was promised — a cousin who now leads the largest military region in North China.

Cinema of the World Madinat Theatre PUBLIC

SKIN

(Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, UAE) 85mins. Nonfiction, war. Dir: Afraa Batous. Cast: Soubhi

(Germany) The Match Factory. 140mins. Drama.

Dir: Sebastian Schipper.

Cast: Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski.

Victoria, a young woman from Madrid, meets four Berlin men outside a club.

Sonne and his gang are in trouble and Victoria ends up as their driver.

However, what starts off as a big, crazy adventure turns quickly into a nightmare. At the crack of dawn, Victoria and Sonne suddenly realise: it’s all or nothing… a journey to the end of the night — breathless, captivating, romantic.

A film about a youth that wants more; about crazy love at first sight; and about the wild heartbeat of the big city.

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14:45 THE CURVE

(UAE, Egypt, France, Jordan) 81mins. Drama.

Dir: Rifqi Assaf. Cast: Fatina Laila, Ashraf Barhoum, Mazen Moadam.

Radi lives in his VW minivan and hears a shrill scream in the distance. He switches on the lights of his ‘home’. He soon finds himself on a road trip with memorable characters that change his very private lifestyle: Laila, the screaming woman and a recently divorced Palestinian/ Syrian travelling back to Damascus; a Lebanese artist, whose car has broken down; and a Jordanian policeman. www.screendaily.com

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18:00 MADAME COURAGE

Festival 14:45 FATIMA

(France, Canada) Pyramide International.

79mins. Drama, Social.

Dir: Philippe Faucon.

Cast: Kenza Noah Aïche, Soria Zeroual, Zita Hanrot, Chawki Amari.

Fatima lives in France with her two daughters. Integration is a challenge for her as she speaks French poorly and is constantly frustrated by her daily interactions with her daughters, who don’t

Together, they realise they have a lot more in common than they would have imagined.

Muhr Feature MOE 05 JURY/PUBLIC

FATIMA See box, above

17:30 48 HOURS PROJECT

120mins.

The Beach PUBLIC

RAINBOW

(India) 106mins.

Drama. Dir: Nagesh Kukunoor. Cast: Gulfam Khan, Krrish Chhabria, Hetal Gada.

Ten-year-old Pari

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speak much Arabic.

Her girls are her pride and joy, but they are also a source of worry.

To ensure the best possible future for them, Fatima works odd hours as a cleaning woman.

After an unfortunate fall down the stairs forces her to recuperate at home, she begins to write to her daughters in Arabic — all the thoughts that she has never before managed to express.

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and her blind younger brother Chotu are orphans who live with their uncle. Pari has promised her brother that he will be able to see again when he is nine years old; however, they have no money for an operation. With Chotu’s ninth birthday approaching, Pari has to find a way to live up to her promise. When she discovers an A-list actor is filming on location in the desert, she sets off with Chotu on a fairy-tale-like odyssey.

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17:45 BEHEMOTH

(France, China) INA. 90mins. Non-fiction. Dir: Zhao Liang. Cast: Workers from local mines and ironworks, local citizens of the inner Mongolian Grasslands, Xiao Zhang and fellow workers.

In the sunlight, mining is about to destroy the crisp grasslands. In the moonlight at the incandescent iron mine, a drill operator enduring his task struggles to overcome drowsiness.

Meanwhile at the coal mountain, a ghostly crowd sorts coal from rock. An endless chain of trucks transport the coal and ore to factories, where another crew toils amid the heat of molten iron, like penitents in hell. In a hospital for veteran miners who for years have inhaled coal dust, each day drags on and death is already in sight. They exist in a living purgatory, but no paradise awaits them. Through these successive labours, we have destroyed a genuine paradise.

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THITHI

(India, US) 122mins.

Drama. Dir: Raam

Reddy. Cast: Abhishek H N, Thammegowda S, Channegowda.

The story of how three generations of sons react to the death of the oldest in their clan, a man named Century Gowda: a locally renowned, cantankerous 101-year-old man. Set in

a village in South India, three storylines intertwine before converging at Century Gowda’s ‘thithi’ — the final funeral celebration that takes place 11 days after a death.

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(Algeria, France) Les Asphofilms. 89mins.

Drama. Dir: Merzak Allouache. Cast: Adlane Djemil, Lamia Bezouaoui.

Omar, an unstable and lonely teenager, lives in a slum in the suburbs of Mostaganem. He is addicted to an infamous psychotropic, nicknamed Madame Courage: Artane tablets that are very popular among young Algerians for their euphoric effect of invincibility. Omar is a specialist in snatching.

One morning, he goes downtown to indulge in his usual petty crimes.

His first victim is a young girl called Selma, walking with her friends and prominently wearing a gold necklace. As he grabs the jewellery, their eyes meet.

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THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY See box, below

Festival 18:00 THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY

(UK) Mister Smith Entertainment. 114mins.

Biography, drama.

Dir: Matt Brown.

Cast: Jeremy Irons, Dev Patel, Devika Bhise.

The true story of a

unique genius whose pivotal theories propelled him from obscurity and derision into the world’s mathematical establishment. The film follows Srinivasa Ramanujan, a 25-yearold shipping clerk and self-taught genius in

1913 India. On writing to GH Hardy, an eminent British mathematics professor at Trinity College, Cambridge, Ramanujan moves to England to work under his mentorship.

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»

December 12, 2015 Screen International at Dubai 13

Screenings

documentary.

Dir: Noura Kevorkian.

Cast: Barkev Kevorkian, Jano Scherbetjian, Lara Scherzer.

On the road to Damascus in Lebanon’s beautiful Bekaa Valley, an Armenian man with latestage Parkinson’s disease takes one last journey.

Played by a non-actor who has the illness, this impressionistic hybrid film offers a journey into the mind and life of a man with a crippling disease.

A machine maker and an amateur cosmologist, Barkev can no longer speak. Yet through his journals, his machines, and powerful imagery with music, the film travels into the past and the future of both the man and Lebanon.

Festival 18:30 DeGRADe

(Palestine, France, Qatar) Elle Driver.

80mins. Drama. Dir: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser. 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

THE THIN YELLOW LINE

(Mexico) Latido Films.

95mins. Drama.

Dir: Celso Garcia.

Cast: Damian Alcazar, Joaquin Cosio, Silverio Palacios.

Five men are hired to paint the lines on a road. Working at 1 km per hour is slow enough to recognise the lines between good and evil, laughter and despair, life and death. The challenges they face will change their lives forever.

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18:15

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 zoo, and Hamas has decided it’s time to settle old scores.

Stuck in the salon, the women begin to open up.

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Medina, the place where he was born and raised.

Many years have passed since he last visited. His heart trembles as he follows a voice that he hopes will help him find happiness. Yusif has lost his keys and is accused of killing an annoying beggar boy who tried to attack his wife. He finds himself in a prison cell. He tries hard to keep his faith in God, until the day he is able to set himself free.

However, with freedom comes the challenge to make new choices.

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AL MEDINA

(UAE, Denmark, Jordan) 90mins. Drama, psychodrama. Dir: Omar Shargawi. Cast: Ashraf Farah, Nadera Omran, Omar Shargawi.

Yusif and his pregnant Danish wife are in

OUR EVERYDAY LIFE

(Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia) 89mins.

Drama. Dir: Ines Tanovic. Cast: Emir Hadzihafizbegovic, Uliks Fehmiu, Jasna Ormela Bery.

14 Screen International at Dubai December 12, 2015

The Susic family lives out an everyday Bosnian story.

The father Muhamed is employed in a reputable company; mother Marija is retired; son Sasa, who was in the army, lives with his parents; and daughter Senada lives in Slovenia.

Their lives begin to fall apart due to Muhamed’s disappointment after his company is sold on the stock exchange, Sasa’s negligent attitude towards work and family, and Marija’s breast cancer diagnosis. As the problems grow, Muhamed and Sasa realise that at the end of the day, family is what counts.

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19:30 JAWS

(US) 124mins. Adventure, drama, thriller. Dir: Steven Spielberg. Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw.

A special 40th anniversary screening of Steven Spielberg’s classic shark movie that still continues to chill and thrill film lovers. Amity sheriff Martin Brody tries to protect the

beach from a killer shark.

He ends up joining hunter Quint and Matt Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute on a mission to track the great beast and get the better of it. One of the truly great Hollywood blockbusters.

Cinema of the World The Beach PUBLIC

21:15 23 KILOMETRES

(UAE, Canada, Lebanon) 78mins. Non-fiction, experimental, creative

Muhr Feature MOE 13 PUBLIC

WAITING See box, below

21:30 THE CLAN

(Argentina, Spain) Film Factory Entertainment.

108mins. Action, biography, crime, drama.

Dir: Pablo Trapero. Cast: Antonia Bengoechea, Guillermo Francella, Peter Lanzani, Lili Popovich.

Set in a typical family

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18:30 DeGRADe See box, above

18:45 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 lap and embarks on an incredible journey from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah via Dubai.

Accompanied by his friend, Sultan is desperate to reunite with an absent grandmother and embrace the tenderness and love he has missed and longed for.

Festival 21:15 WAITING

(India) Shoreline Entertainment. 92mins.

Drama. Dir: Anu Menon. Cast: Kalki Koechlin, Naseeruddin

Shah, Arjun Mathur.

A retired professor, whose wife has been in a coma for months, meets a terrified young woman whose husband is in the same condition after a

sudden accident. Will grief drive them both insane, or can two lonely strangers support each other?

Cinema of the World MOE 17 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

Festival 22:00 DARK IN THE WHITE LIGHT

(Sri Lanka) Film Council Productions. 82mins.

Drama. Dir: Vimukthi Jayasundara. Cast: Suranga Ranawaka, Ruvin De Silva, Steve De La Zilwa.

A young Buddhist monk embarks on a quest for spiritual truth. A student, wanting to become a doctor, tries to test his limits. An

home in Argentina in the early 1980s, a sinister clan lives off kidnapping and murder. Arquimedes, the patriarch, leads the operations. Alejandro, his eldest son, is a star rugby player at a prestigious club and the popular national team, Los Pumas. Alejandro succumbs to his father’s will and identifies candidates for kidnapping, as his popularity shields him from suspicion. In some form or another, the members of the family abet this extremely dubious venture, as they live off the benefits of the ransoms paid by the victims’ families.

Cinema of the World Madinat Arena GALA

organ dealer grows his business in a climate of general indifference and Colombo’s humidity. A surgeon, accompanied by his driver, heals by day and rapes women at night. In the form of a philosophical tale, the film interweaves various stories of fraying bodies on the threshold of pain between life and death.

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Drama, music. Dir: Hany Abu-Assad. Cast: Tawfeek Barhom, Ashraf Barhoum, Ali Suliman, Eyad Hourani, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Hiba Atallah, Qais Atallah, Ahmed Qassim, Abd-Elkarim Abu-Barakeh.

Gaza is home to Mohammed Assaf and his sister Nour. On TV one evening he falls for an impossible dream: the auditions of Arab Idol, the most popular show in the Arab world, are taking place in Cairo. Despite the closed borders, he makes it in front of the judges in Egypt. From there, destiny awaits.

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STARVE YOUR DOG THE IDOL

(Palestine, Netherlands, Qatar, UK, UAE) Seville International. 98mins.

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(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 has-been filmmaker sets out to engrave a painful chapter in her country’s history by interviewing a 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 street a poor woman prays for an earthquake to bring about justice. Civilisation is on the edge and tipping over into the abyss.

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21:45

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NAWARA

(Egypt) 122mins.

Drama. Dir: Hala Khalil.

Cast: Menna Shalabi, Mahmoud Hemeda, Ragaa Hussein, Ahmed Rateb, Ahmed Magdy, Abbas Abo Elhassan, Sherine Reda, Ameer Salah Eldin, Rahma Hassan.

Nawara, a woman in her 20s, works as a domestic helper at the residence of Ossama Bey and his family, who are closely linked to the Mubarak regime. As the revolution unfolds, the family decide to leave the country temporarily. They give Nawara some money and ask her to look after the house in their absence.

Muhr Feature Madinat Theatre JURY/ PUBLIC

LOVE, THEFT AND OTHER ENTANGLEMENTS

TRAP

(Palestine) 93mins.

Drama. Dir: Muayad Alayan. Cast: Sami Metwasi, Maya Abu Alhayyat, Riyad Sliman.

Mousa gets into trouble when he steals the wrong car. What he thought was an Israeli vehicle and an easy way to make money in his impoverished Palestinian refugee camp, turns out to be a load of misfortune, when he finds a kidnapped Israeli soldier in the trunk.

(Philippines) Films Distribution. 97mins.

Drama. Dir: Brillante Mendoza. Cast: Nora Aunor, Julio Diaz, Aaron Rivera.

In the aftermath of Supertyphoon Haiyan, which ravaged the city of Tacloban in the Philippines, the lives of Bebeth, Larry and Erwin intertwine. Bebeth searches for the remains of her children with the hope of finding a match

among the DNA records of those buried in a mass grave. Larry, who lost his wife, consoles himself by joining a group of devout Catholics who carry a lifesize cross around the city. Erwin and his older brother try to hide the truth about their parents’ death from their little sister. Adding to the loss of the bereaved, a series of events further tests their endurance.

Cinema of the World MOE 05 PUBLIC

22:00 DARK IN THE WHITE LIGHT See box, above

RATTLE THE CAGE (ZINZANA)

(UAE, Jordan) IM Global, Cinetic Media. 92mins.

Crime, thriller. Dir: Majid Al Ansari.

Cast: Ali Suliman, Saleh Bakri, Ahd Kamel, Ali Al Jabri, Abdullah Bou Abed, Mansoor Al Feeli, Eyad Hourani, Yasa Jumahh.

Despite his best intentions, Talal Mohamed finds himself locked in a holding cell in a sleepy town with no ID and a few bruises from the mistakes of the previous night. His inability to make bail is the least of his problems, when he is forced to play a madman’s twisted game and save his family’s life.

Muhr Emirati MOE 06 PUBLIC

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