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VOX boards Emirati trio

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW Kaswara Alkhatib

Uturn’s Dubai move heralds global push

BY LIZ SHACKLETON

Jeddah-based digital content platform Uturn Entertainment is moving its head office to Dubai as part of a push to expand across the region and further afield.

“We intend to go global, like the Hispanic network MiTu in the US — we want to become the network for Arab speakers all over the world,” said Uturn chairman and CEO Kaswara Alkhatib. The company is opening an office in Dubai Media City in January and a production office in Dubai Production City the following month.

Uturn already has an audience across the Middle East, and among Arabs in the US and Europe, but Alkhatib hopes the move will enable the platform to attract more digital creators from outside Saudi Arabia, and grow its audience overseas.

“The idea behind Uturn is to create content by the youth and for the youth, and we want to start doing that in a local context,” Alkhatib said.

“You can’t look at MENA as one region. The creators and viewers are different in Egypt, Levant, Saudi and the Gulf.” The platform also hopes to attract Arabic-speaking content creators based in the West.

Uturn is the one of the top multichannel networks (MCNs) in the region, attracting 84 million views per month. In addition to aggregating content, it produces web series such as Takki.

Alkhatib attended Dubai Film Market for a PwC panel about the future of video. Speaking about revenue models, he said: “The Arab world is different to the US in that distribution started with satellite channels and we’re used to consuming content for free. The way we see monetisation is through sponsorship, brand integration and ads.”

VOX Cinemas has boarded the next film by the makers of Emirati street-racing hit Hajwala and also acquired local director Ahmed Zain’s comedy drama Lisa, which premieres at DIFF this year.

The company is also gearing up for the February release of Ali F Mostafa’s dystopian drama The Worthy, which receives a gala screening at DIFF today.

The latter title came to VOX through a loose output detail with Image Nation Abu Dhabi, which began with thriller Rattle The Cage (Zinzana) last year and also included Saeed Salmeen Al Murry’s Going To Heaven.

The acquisitions are a sign of the

Dubai-based regional exhibitor and distributor’s growing commitment to supporting local cinema.

“We are an Emirati company and our holding company [Majid Al Futtaim Properties] has given us a mandate to support the local and Arab film industry, especially Emirati cinema,” said VOX Cinemas general manager Jacques Kruger.

“Everything we’ve done until now has been at an acquisition level, either during post-production or when the work was completed, but future plans are definitely to start investing from the beginning.”

Emirati film-makers Ali Bin Matar and Ebrahim Bin Mohammad’s Hajwala was a breakout

Neilson Barnard/Getty

local hit for VOX, which released it across the Gulf on 40 screens in September, drawing 90,000 spectators. “There were 53,000 admissions in the first three days. They kept calling us for more DCPs. We were opening up screens on an hourly basis,” said Kruger.

He said VOX had convinced Bin Matar and Bin Mohammad to spend time developing their next project. “They were fired up after the success of Hajwala but we convinced them to slow down. It will be a comedy, not an action film like Hajwala, but that’s all we know.”

Lisa, about two brothers who fall for a US student, follows on from Zain’s comedy horror Grandmother’s Farm and its sequel.

Kapoor, Singh launch Befikre Indian stars Vaani Kapoor and Ranveer Singh are attending DIFF for the world premiere of their Hindi-language romantic comedy, Befikre, directed by Yash Raj Films chief Aditya Chopra.

The film, which received a redcarpet gala screening last night, was mostly filmed on location in Paris and releases worldwide today. It marks Chopra’s return to directing after 2008’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Ranveer Singh is one of India’s hottest stars, following his role in 2015 megahit Bajirao Mastani, while Kapoor made her debut in Yash Raj Films’ 2013 Shuddh Desi Romance.

Vaani Kapoor and Ranveer Singh

Sunrise shines for IWC Filmmaker Award UAE film-maker Abdullah Hassan Ahmed’s Sunrise won the $100,000 IWC Filmmaker Award at DIFF last night. The script follows a father who receives tragic news about his son, fighting in a distant war, and is unsure how to break the news to his pregnant wife.

Khalid Al Mahmood will produce

the project through UAE-based Faradees Production. The script has already received support from the UAE’s Ministry of Interior, which awarded it the $100,000 best societal screenplay prize at last year’s DIFF. Ahmed received the IWC Filmmaker Award at a ceremony

held at the One&Only Royal Mirage in Dubai last night.

Palestinian actor Ali Suliman headed the jury, which included IWC CEO Georges Kern, DIFF artistic director Masoud Amralla Al Ali and DIFF chairman Abdulhamid Juma.

Liz Shackleton

TODAY

Arab Stars of Tomorrow, p8

FEATURES Star turns The first day in a series of interviews with the talents selected for this year’s Arab Stars of Tomorrow » Page 8

Jury duty Muhr jury members on what they’re looking forward to at this years’ DIFF » Page 10

SCREENINGS

» Page 14

FORUM EVENTS 11:30-12:30 Masterclass: packaging your film for success Presenter Alex Walton, president and co-founder, Bloom

14:00-15:00 Money you can bank on: the fundamentals of film finance Panellists Alex Brunner, agent, Independent Film Group, UTA; Isabelle Devaux, director, Cofiloisirs; Milan Popelka, COO, FilmNation Entertainment; Mohamed Hefzy, founder and MD, Film Clinic.

Moderator John Hadity, executive VP, EP Financial Solutions

15:30-16:30 What the funders want Panellists Isabel Davis, head of international, BFI; Rima Mismar, deputy director and film programmes manager, AFAC; Magalie Armand, head of international co-production at Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, CNC; Kristian Takvam Kindt, festival manager, Arab Film Days Oslo.

Moderator Annemarie Jacir, film-maker

17:00-18:15 Networking session: meet the funders and festivals Participants Molly O’Keefe, Tribeca Film Institute; Isabel Davis, BFI; Rima Mismar, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture; Magalie Armand, CNC; Khalil Benkirane, Doha Film Institute; Kathleen Drumm, Toronto International Film Festival; Edward Xu, Shanghai International Film Festival; Amandine Poret, Franco Arab Film Festival; Julie Bergeron, Marché du Film, Cannes. Open to DFM and DIFF delegates.

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Memento powers up Trier’s Thelma

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REVIEW Café Society Woody Allen’s opener in the “high altitudes” of his recent successes » Page 18

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Memento Films International (MFI) has boarded sales on Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s supernatural thriller Thelma about a young woman unaware she possesses frightening powers.

After his English-language Louder Than Bombs, which played here in Competition last year, Trier has returned home for the Norwegian-language thriller, which is due to shoot in Oslo this autumn.

Thomas Robsahm at Oslo-based Motlys, who is lead producing, said the film will be “Trier’s most visually ambitious project to date, with striking VFX”.

Co-producers are Alexandre Mallet-Guy of Memento Films Production in France, Mikkel Jersin at Denmark’s Snowglobe and Mattias Nohrborg at Sweden’s B-Reel.

Trier will work with his usual team of co-writer Eskil Vogt, director of photography Jakob Ihre and editor Olivier Bugge Coutté.

Paris-based MFI is kicking off sales in Cannes. Casting is underway in Oslo, and the film is expected to be ready for spring 2017. Norwegian distributor SF Norge is planning a Halloween 2017 release. The $4.8m film was also supported by Eurimages, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen Film Fund and Media.

FEATURES Buzz titles The hot projects from Japan

» Page 26

SCREENINGS What to see at the festival and in the market today

» Page 64

Café Society stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively with the film’s director Woody Allen on the red carpet for Cannes’ opening night film, which plays here out of competition

Driver set to saddle up for Gilliam’s Quixote

BY GEOFFREY MACNAB

Terry Gilliam’s long-gestating project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote looks set to shoot in the autumn with a hot new star — Adam Driver.

Fresh from Star Wars blockbuster The Force Awakens, Driver could bring fresh life to the film that has been in the pipeline for nearly 20 years. The role was origi-

Kino takes Silk Road to US

BY LIZ SHACKLETON

US distributor Kino Lorber is launching a theatrical distribution label, Silk Road Cinema, dedicated to award-winning arthouse films from India, Pakistan and the rest of South Asia.

Kino Lorber is partnering with New York and Mumbai-based independent director-producer Shrihari Sathe to curate the collection and collaborate on distribution strategy.

Silk Road Cinema will release around six titles a year throughout North America, in theatres and

Japan hot titles, page 26

NEWS Homecoming Gaumont boards Valérie Lemercier’s comedy » Page 2

Hubert Boesl

across all other platforms including DVD and VoD, starting with five titles acquired by Sathe and Alan McAlex’s 3 Monkeys.

These include Afia Nathaniel’s Dukhtar, Geetu Mohandas’s Liar’s Dukhtar Dice, Sathe’s 1,000 Rupee Note Note, Avinash Arun’s Berlinale winner Killa and Aamir Bashir’s Harud.

Sathe will be actively seeking new South Asian titles at Cannes with the Kino Lorber team.

Kino Lorber’s Wendy Lidell, who will oversee Silk Road’s theatrical releases, will also be in Cannes.

nally intended for Johnny Depp.

The part of Quixote, first played by Jean Rochefort when Gilliam mounted an ill-fated production in 1998, will be taken on by Gilliam’s fellow Monty Python member, Michael Palin.

The project, recently revived by Gilliam with veteran Portuguese producer Paulo Branco’s Alfama Films, is shaping up to shoot this

autumn. Driver and Palin would replace another high-profile duo who were lined up for the roles: rising star Jack O’Connell and veteran John Hurt.

Driver may be in Cannes later this week as he stars in Jim Jarmusch’s Competition film, Paterson.. Full details of Gilliam’s Don Quixote project are expected to be confirmed later in the market.

Coixet plans to open Bookshop Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy and Patricia Clarkson are to star in writer-director Isabel Coixet drama The Bookshop, which is readying to shoot in August.

Set in a small town in 1959 England, The Bookshop charts the story of a woman (Mortimer) who decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop — a decision that becomes a political minefield.

London-based Celsius Entertainment is cooking up deals

in Cannes on the period project, which has pre-sold to Spain (A Contracorriente), Australia and New Zealand (Transmission), Greece (Odeon), airlines (Jaguar Distribution) and Turkey (Filmarti).

Producers are Joan Bas and Jaume Banacolocha from Diagonal and Adolfo Blanco from A Contracorriente.

Executive producers are Manuel Monzon, Albert Sagales and Fernando Riera.

Andreas Wiseman

Bergman’s Saving Neta goes West

BY ANDREAS WISEMAN

WestEnd has boarded world sales rights to Nir Bergman drama Saving Neta. The Israeli feature, in post-production, tells the stories of four women whose lives change after their brief encounter with a man called Neta.

The film is written by Eran Bar Gil and Bergman, the film-maker behind Berlinale award-winner Broken Wings, critically acclaimed TV drama In Treatment and Yona.

Benny Avni stars alongside Neta Riskin in a cast that also includes Rotem Abuhab, Irit Kaplan and Naama Arlaky.

Producers are Tami Leon, Avraham Pirchi and Chilik Michaeli (Big Bad Wolves) and executive producer is Rina Schneur.

Crew includes DoP Lutz Reitemeier (Wadjda) and composer Asher Goldschmidt (White White God God).

Bergman said: “At some time in our lives we’ve all made a wrong turn which brought about a sudden change. This is Neta’s story. His life suddenly got out of control and he’s searching for the right path again.”

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NEWS

Madden not trumped by US election UK film-maker John Madden admits he feared the drama of the US presidential election would overtake his Washingtonset political film Miss Sloane as he was shooting it earlier this year.

“I knew we definitely didn’t want to get behind the politics on this film, which is why I pressed to complete it this year,” said Madden. “I couldn’t have foreseen how things would turn out but the film ended up colliding with the most extraordinary set of changes.”

Jessica Chastain stars as a hard-nosed Washington lobbyist, using every trick in the book to push through changes to US gun laws. Madden acknowledges it was “audacious” for a UK director to tackle the issue of gun ownership in the US but also questions whether a US filmmaker would have been able to take on the topic.

“It is such an entrenched issue it would have been impossible for it not to become a polemic,” said Madden, who insists the film is more about political process than gun ownership.

Melanie Goodfellow

Market brings a taste of India

BY LIZ SHACKLETON

Dubai Film Market is introducing a selection of Indian projects for the first time this year through a partnership with Europe’s PJLF Three Rivers Residency.

The five projects are being scripted by hot new talents such as Kanu Behl, whose debut feature Titli premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2014, and Raj Rishi More, whose project is being produced by The Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra.

The Three Rivers residency provides writer-directors with a month-long distraction-free space to work on their scripts in the Italian countryside, with the help of an expert mentor, before presenting their projects at DIFF. Although focusing on Indian projects in its first year, the organisers hope to open the programme to international writer-directors, including those from the Arab world, from next year.

“We feel writers sometimes need a much more concentrated period to hone their ideas and get away from all the distractions of a day job and daily life,” said producer and script consultant Olivia Stewart, who devised the programme. “We bring in advisers for one weekend during each residency, but it’s not a patron-protégé system. It’s more

THREE RIVERS 2016 AGRA Dir/scr Kanu Behl Guru dreams of building a room on the family terrace so he can marry Mala and settle down. But Mala does not actually exist.

CROWN (AARSH) Dir/scr Miransha Naik Kanu Behl is part of the residency that this year focuses on Indian projects

about opening a few doors for the writers and giving them the tools to find their own voice.”

The director-writers on this year’s programme also include Miransha Naik, whose debut feature Juze is expected to hit festivals next year; Arun Karthick, whose debut The Strange Case Of Shiva premiered at Rotterdam this year; and multimedia artist Sonal Jain, whose most recent installation featured in the ‘Krishna in the Garden of Assam’ exhibition at the British Museum in London.

Stewart added that she aims to bring in mentors with experience across the production chain: “We wanted people who are not pure script consultants but can look at writing as a bridge towards what goes on screen rather than an isolated first stage.”

In addition to Stewart, this year’s advisers included editor Molly Stensgaard, writer Franz Rodenkirchen, writer-director Gyula Gazdag and Marten Rabarts, head of the Netherlands’ Eye International.

The collaboration with DIFF is aimed at helping the writers extend their professional networks. They have full access to activities at Dubai Film Market, where they will receive pitch training from Rabarts and meet with potential financiers, co-producers and distribution partners.

PJLF Three Rivers Residency is a private initiative supported by the PJLF Arts Fund and the Chatwin Scholarship. Stewart added that she may introduce an editing residency in 2017, to give feedback at rough-cut stage.

A village outcast accepts a marriage proposal to restore his honour but his wife is in love with another man.

NASSER Dir/scr Arun Karthick A middle-aged salesman strives to live a peaceful life but cannot escape the vengeful and arrogant anonymity of the mob.

PIRATES Dir/scr Raj Rishi More Prod Ritesh Batra A father and son bond over their dreams in the new India of mega-cities.

WET DESERT Dir/scr Sonal Jain A call-centre worker returns home to the mountains where her grandmother makes a strange request.

ONE ON ONE ALI F MOSTAFA AND RAMI YASIN, THE WORTHY

Emirati film-maker Ali F Mostafa and producer Rami Yasin talk to Melanie Goodfellow about dystopian thriller The Worthy, which plays today in DIFF’s Muhr Emirati competition

A

ction thriller The Worthy, by Emirati film-maker Ali F Mostafa, unfolds in a dystopian future in which conflict has resulted in an environmental catastrophe. It follows a disparate group of survivors banded together in an abandoned factory compound housing one of the last remaining sources of uncontaminated water. When a predatory stranger breaches the perimeter, the group find themselves in a fight for their lives in which it is not always clear who is the enemy.

The film’s scenes of destruction and exploration of societal breakdown resonate with current events in the Middle East but Mostafa says the premise is not meant to be unique to the region.

“It’s a reflection of what we may have witnessed or seen in the news,” says Mostafa.

“You can’t help being moved but it’s not based

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on these events. It’s a ‘What if?’ kind of scenario that could happen anywhere.”

Unlike Mostafa’s first two feature films — City Of Light and From A To B — which he wrote, produced and directed, it is the first time the film-maker has directed a feature developed by a third party. Based on a script by Vikram Weet, the production was developed by Emirati film company Image Nation and Peter Safran and Steven Schneider, the US producers of genre hits The Conjuring and Paranormal Activity.

“It was kind of Ali F Mostafa and producer Rami Yasin eye-opening but I come from an

advertising background so I’m used to being given a script and a storyboard and being told how you are going to interpret it,” says Mostafa.

“I didn’t have the same pressure that I had on the other films where I was very involved in the production process. I could focus on being a director… I have plenty of ideas of my own but it’s a route I would happily take in the future.”

Mostafa worked closely with UAE-based producer Rami Yasin in transposing the feature to the Arab world as well as searching for locations and the ensemble pan-Arab cast featuring Maisa Abd Elhadi, Ali

Suliman and big-screen debutant Mahmoud Al Atrash in the lead role.

“I think 80% of it was written, but there was quite a lot of stuff that got changed because of the locations we chose,” says Yasin. “The characters and the order in which they go was in the original script, but how they go, we worked on that a lot.”

The feature was shot last year against the backdrop of an abandoned Communist-era factory in Romania. “It looks amazing. We looked at a lot of locations, in India, Serbia and Jordan, and then we ended up in Bucharest,” says Mostafa.

The film finishes on an open-ended note and both Mostafa and Yasin admit they would love to shoot a sequel. “We have some great ideas so if it does well we would love to make another one,” says Mostafa.

December 9, 2016 Screen International at Dubai 5

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

Zaineb Hates The Snow Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

Hedi Reviewed by Wendy Ide A young man is caught between the expectations of his overbearing family and the possibilities of a love affair with a woman who values her freedom and expects him to do the same. This debut feature, which was executive produced by the Dardenne brothers and shares the compassionate naturalism of their approach, takes a smallscale domestic drama and turns it into an allegory for contemporary Tunisia, a country caught between tradition and modernity.

The performances from the leads, in particular Majd Mastoura as the browbeaten Hedi, are strong. Captured by spry handheld camera, Mastoura negotiates a bold arc. He initially seems a rather inert presence: a sulky, love-smothered man-child. But by the end, after a cathartic meltdown, we see a man about to take control of his destiny, whatever it might be.

Playing Hedi’s wonderfully toxic mother, Sabah Bouzouita also merits praise. She dispenses imperious affection to her son and beams a cloying, artificially sweetened smile in public. In contrast, Rim (Rym Ben Messaoud) laughs in a generous and uninhibited manner. An entertainer at the hotel where Hedi stays during a business trip, Rim is warm and unaffected.

After an inelegant first encounter — he lies to her and then clumsily confesses the deception — Hedi and Rim stumble into a relationship almost without thinking. The problem is that it is the week before his arranged marriage.

Writer/director Mohamed Ben Attia fills in the sociopolitical backdrop with a light touch, allowing the love story and Hedi’s journey to take centre stage. In fact, apart from a brief reference to the 2013 protests and the statement, from Hedi’s boss at a car company, that “the country is in crisis”, it sometimes feels as though Hedi exists in a bubble, blindly following his pre-ordained destiny.

Attia’s understated approach extends to the music. The score is minimal — a discordant piano motif introduces us to Hedi at the film’s opening; at the end, the score is more melodic if minor in key. But music is crucial in Hedi’s journey: the synthetic hotel muzak, the forced jollity of Rim’s stage show contrasts with the film’s most potent scene, a joyful local celebration filled with drums and dancing. It is the moment when Hedi — the character and the film — finally comes alive.

6 Screen International at Dubai December 9, 2016

MUHR FEATURE Tun-Bel-Fr. 2016. 88mins Director-screenplay Mohamed Ben Attia Production companies Nomadis Images, Les Films Du Fleuve International sales Luxbox, hedi@ luxboxfilms.com Producer Dora Bouchoucha Fourati Cinematography Frédéric Noirhomme Editors Azza Chaabouni, Ghalya Lacroix, Hafedh Laaridhi Main cast Majd Mastoura, Rym Ben Messaoud, Sabah Bouzouita, Omnia Ben Ghali, Hakim Boumessaoudi, Arwa Ben Smail

Watching how children grow is an education, something Michael Apted’s The Up Series continues to prove every seven years. Director Kaouther Ben Hania (Challat Of Tunis) follows a nine-year-old girl named Zaineb over six years in this appealing documentary, as her life undergoes momentous change. Picking up after the death of her father, Ben Haria follows Zaineb as her mother reconnects with an old flame who has moved to Québec.

Ben Hania’s documentary charts young Zaineb’s odyssey from Tunis to Canada — from life as a religious schoolgirl to becoming a more challenging, cosmopolitan teenager. The story, which came to Ben Hania via a family relationship, is involving as the viewer contemplates the barely understood scale of what is happening to Zaineb as her world turns on its axis. Certain for further festival berths, this intimate documentary might eventually work best on the small screen.

Ben Hania works the camera herself, and the scale is decidedly personal — despite its titular focus on snow (which young Zaineb claims to hate) the film boasts scant footage from outside the family’s various apartments, either in Tunisia or Canada. Instead, the camera acts mainly as a bystander as the clues about Zaineb’s destiny begin to mount up.

She misses her father dreadfully. Soon, however, her mother starts to make cheerful phone calls and before long — even though the aim is to “take it slow” — there are visits, during which a tearful child begs her mother not to go out on a date with this divorced dad. There is another suspicious stranger in the mix as well: a boisterous step-sister named Wijdene, who is also unhappy with developments.

Ben Hania is a cousin of Zaineb’s mother, and she turns out to be extremely lucky in her protagonist. Young Zaineb, all dressed in pink hearts when we meet her, is a smart and open girl who tends to wear her heart on her sleeve — and is not bothered by the proximity of the camera, often stopping to ask for help. This continues to the present day, where the pink has long gone and Zaineb’s world has changed yet again. Editing is sympathetic here, and the use of music nicely restrained in a quality package that hints at the political and religious elements to Zaineb’s destiny rather than make overt statements.

ARABIAN NIGHTS Tun-UAE-Fr-Qat-Leb. 2016. 94mins Director/ cinematography Kaouther Ben Hania Production companies Cinetelefilms, Thirteen Productions International sales Autlook Film Sales, welcome@autlookfilms. com Producer Habib Attia Editor Samuel Lajus, Nadia Ben Rachid Music Sarmad Abdelmajid Featuring Zaineb Khelifi, Wided Khelifi, Wijdene Hamdi, Maher Hamdi, Haythem Khelifi

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SCREENINGS, PAGE 14

The Challenge Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

Wolf And Sheep Reviewed by Allan Hunter Poised on the blurry border between drama and documentary, Wolf And Sheep captures village life in a dusty, sun-bleached corner of Afghanistan where little has changed in generations. Based on an unpublished diary and filmed in nearby Tajikistan, this accomplished autobiographical first feature from writer/director Shahrbanoo Sadat builds into an observant, quietly beguiling portrait of the rituals and traditions, tensions and rivalries in the community and gains extra spice in the sprinkling of magic realist notions that Sadat adds to the brew.

The film-maker places her focus largely on the children of the village; hard-working youngsters who herd the goats and sheep but in many respects are just the same as children the world over in their flirting and fighting, bullying and ability to get into trouble. The whole village is divided along gender lines: women cook and girls herd goats, while the men settle disputes and the boys strive to gain expertise in the handling of some fairly lethal slingshots.

This is a community in which status matters and is measured in the fertility of a wife, the number of livestock you own or the amount of dung you can transform into fuel. Qodrat (Qodratollah Qadiri) faces the death of his father in the film’s earliest scenes and his position in the community grows increasingly precarious when his mother marries a local man and no longer wishes to keep her children.

Sediqa (Sediqa Rasuli) is often shunned or bullied by the other girls but finds an ally in Qodrat and they have touching scenes together as they bond over the proper braiding of a slingshot.

Storytelling is a key part of village life with cautionary tales of punishment and revenge recounted that involve treacherous white snakes, green fairies and the feared Kashmiri wolf that walks on two feet. Sadat briefly brings the legends to life but the real threat to the village lies from a more predictable source in an Afghanistan where daily life has become so precarious.

This confidently crafted film has a smooth flow, expert camerawork from Virginie Surdej and unselfconscious, naturalistic performances from a non-professional cast.

Simple but sincere, respectful and heartfelt, Wolf And Sheep marks the arrival of a promising new talent.

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CINEMA OF THE WORLD Den-Fr-Swe-Afgh. 2016.

84mins Director-screenplay Shahrbanoo Sadat Production companies Adomeit Films, La Fabrica Nocturna Productions, Film Väst, Zentropa Sweden, Wolf Pictures International sales Alpha Violet, virginie@ alphaviolet.com Producer Katja Adomeit Cinematography Virginie Surdej Editor Alexandra Strauss Main cast Sediqa Rasuli, Qodratollah Qadiri, Amina Musavi, Sahar Karimi

Art documentary The Challenge may be aptly named as a dramatically structured piece, but there is an exquisite visual luxury at play in this loose trip across the Arabian gulf to a falconry competition in Qatar. Winner of the special jury prize in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present strand, Italian artist Yuri Ancarani’s mostly silent travelogue captures the Arabian peninsula without comment, its repetitive, dreamy imagery providing an insight to an age-old sport that today plays out within the trappings of extreme wealth.

The art of falconry has existed throughout the millennia; while its glory may have faded in the Western world, it retains a spectacular prestige in the Middle East, where — at $24,000 for a bird at auction — it is a luxury ticket. Ancarani’s camera places falconry in the context of custom-built sports cars, gold Harley-Davidsons, pet leopards and private planes as this majestic animal travels to the Qatar desert meet.

Ancarani’s previous films have played the festival circuit but also appeared in museums including the Guggenheim and the Pompidou Centre, and it seems assured that The Challenge will follow the same path, with its juxtaposition of the ancient desert and animal with modern luxury lifestyle. When the meet finally takes place, for example, we watch the competition through a giant TV screen set up in the middle of Qatar’s shifting sands, as the white robed, all-male spectators sit on elaborate Persian carpets inside their tents fiddling incessantly with their mobile phones — the modern Bedouins and the ancient sport.

Ancarani’s camera is not at all judgmental. Swooping repetition is a large part of this 70-minute piece as he returns time and again to sequences such as gas-guzzling jeeps in the desert, the gold Harley and the private jet that seats only one man beside his prized falcons.

Shots where two sheikhs bid on a bird by phone while watching the auction on a giant TV are revelatory. The motion of taking the exquisitely fashioned hoods from the birds’ heads become a motif, although we never see the birds fly in close-up. The viewer experiences the competition in the same way as the spectators, through the giant screen, juxtaposed with footage taken from a camera placed on the bird itself.

ARABIAN NIGHTS Fr-It 2016. 70mins Director/screenplay/ editor Yuri Ancarani Production company Slingshot Films International sales Slingshot Films, info@ slingshotfilms.it Producers Christophe Gougeon, Fabrizio Polpettini, Pierre Malachin, Tommaso Bertani Cinematography Yuri Ancarani, Luca Nervegna, Jonathan Ricquebourg Production design Stéphane Dougoud, Tanguy Thirion

December 9, 2016 Screen International at Dubai 7

ARAB 2016

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

STARS OF TOMORROW ARAB 2016

Amjad Al-Rasheed

Writer-director (Jordan) Screen’s inaugural Arab Stars of Tomorrow showcases the region’s up-and-coming young talent. Here we profile Jordan’s Amjad Al-Rasheed, director of short The Parrot, who is gearing up for his first feature

A

t the age of 10, Jordan’s Amjad Al-Rasheed declared to his mother that he wanted to be a director, and he has never looked back. His early exposure to cinema consisted mainly of Egyptian features broadcast on Jordanian TV. “I used to love the old black-and-white films with stars like Faten Hamama and Omar Sharif, but I’ve never forgotten my first trip to a movie theatre in 1997 to see Titanic. For me, it was huge, like a dream, and cinema has remained like a dream for me ever since,” says Al-Rasheed.

Like many aspiring film-makers in the Middle East, Al-Rasheed felt compelled to undertake a more mainstream degree before turning his full attention to cinema. But while studying business, he also built a portfolio of corporate films and shorts with which he applied to Jordan’s Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts, home to the first and only cinema Masters programme in the region, and made it into the inaugural intake of 2008.

Since graduating in 2010, Al-Rasheed has built a varied body of work, ranging from TV ads for brands including Samsung to music videos for popular Jordanian bands Autostrad and Akher Zapheer, and a handful of shorts including Bitter Days and Hit The Road.

He also worked with the UK-Jordanian actress Rania Kurdi on her hit comedy sketch series The Rania Show, which revolves around five stereotypical female Jordanian characters. “It was a bit like [the UK’s] The Catherine Tate Show or Little Britain. No-one had ever done a sketch show like that here before,” he explains.

Al-Rasheed will be attending DIFF this year with his period short film The Parrot. His most ambitious work to date, it revolves around a Moroccan Jewish family who move into a house in Haifa that has been abandoned precipitously by its Palestinian owners following the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May

8 Screen International at Dubai December 9, 2016

1948. In their haste, the previous occupants left behind a talking parrot. Egypt-based Tunisian actress Hend Sabry and Palestinian actor Ashraf Barhom star as the couple Rachel and Mousa, who suffer the talkative bird while their daughter Aziza attempts to build a rapport with it.

The film is a highly original work both in terms of its treatment of the early days of the Middle East conflict and its stylised aesthetic. It is based on a short story by Al-Rasheed, inspired by his Palestinian grandmother’s tales of her family home in Jerusalem and a pet parrot she left behind on moving to neighbouring Jordan.

Al-Rasheed wrote the script with co-director Darin J Sallam and fellow film-maker Rifqi Assaf, best known for road movie The Curve. He says the aesthetic of the film is inspired by the work of Swedish director Roy Andersson. “He has this very static style. I like the way he carefully composes the scene and the frame and that everything is choreographed,” says the young director, who also cites Palestinian film-maker Elia Suleiman as a key influence.

The project won Germany’s Robert Bosch Stiftung Film Prize in 2015, which helped fund the shoot with assistance from Jordan’s Royal Film Commission (RFC).

Roman Roitman of Cologne-based production company Monokel co-produced alongside Jordanian producer Deema Azar.

Al-Rasheed is now developing his first feature film, Inshallah It’s A Boy — A Chapter From The Fabled Life Of Nawal. It revolves around recently widowed Nawal, whose brother-in law is pressuring her to sell the house so he can get his hands on inheritance from his deceased brother, based on Islamic Law. Nawal starts looking for a man to impregnate her in order to retain her right, and that of her only daughter, to keep their home. “It’s about women’s rights. I want to tackle the fact that Jordan is a male-dominated society in which women are too often the losers,” explains Al-Rasheed.

Backed by RFC, Inshallah It’s A Boy is being produced

by Diala Al Raie — an experienced line producer whose credits include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Hyena Road, The Martian and Oscar-nominated Theeb — and the commission’s Ayah Jardaneh. Al-Rasheed hopes to shoot the film next year.

Melanie Goodfellow Contact Amjad Al-Rasheed alrasheed.amjad@gmail.com

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Gareth Cattermole/Getty

Samer Ismail Actor (Syria) Syrian actor Samer Ismail saw a promising start to his career slip away when war broke out. But a breakout role in The Worthy put it back on track, and he has been named a Star of Tomorrow 2016

S

amer Ismail got his first big break straight out of Damascus’s Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts when he was cast as the lead in Syrian director Hatem Ali’s 2012 TV drama Omar.

The epic series revolved around the life of Omar ibn AlKhattab — the second successor, or Caliph, of the Prophet Muhammad — and introduced the young actor’s face to millions of viewers across the region.

“It was an amazing experience. I had recently graduated and found myself on set with some 250 other actors and one of the best directors in the region,” recalls Ismail. The role should have paved the way for a highprofile career but local work dried up as the Syrian civil war took its toll on a once-thriving TV drama industry.

“The start of my career coincided with the beginning of the war so I never really savoured the success of appearing in Omar,” says Ismail. “The war has of course since impacted the local drama industry and although we try to continue to work, its capacity has been greatly reduced and a lot of actors and directors have left.”

A new chapter in Ismail’s acting career has just opened, however, with his first big-screen role in Emirati director Ali F Mostafa’s dystopian drama The Worthy, which features a cast from across the Middle East.

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Ismail delivers an arresting performance as Mussa, the psychopathic follower of a deadly cult who picks off a small band of survivors of an environmental disaster.

The futuristic thriller, which will have its MENA premiere at DIFF, is the latest production from Abu Dhabi film company Image Nation. It is being sold internationally by IM Global under its Anthem label and has just been picked up by Cinetic Media for the US. UAE-based producer Rami Yasin, one of the producers of The Worthy who also oversaw the casting of the film, hopes the role will boost Ismail’s profile both in the Middle East and internationally. “Samer really is made for film,” says Yasin. “He is one of the few actors I have met and felt immediately he would do well in cinema. He really researches his characters and has a depth that he creates, but makes it look effortless in front of the camera.

“I hope that after The Worthy he will get more opportunities and perhaps even be discovered internationally like Ali Suliman, because he really is of that calibre,” Yasin adds, referring to the award-winning Palestinian actor.

In the meantime, Ismail has also just come off the set of another Image Nation production, the feelgood comedy On Borrowed Time directed by Iraqi writer-director

Yasir Al Yasiri. Based on a short story by Kuwaiti poet and songwriter Kareem Al Iraqi, it revolves around four forgotten residents of an old people’s home whose lives are reinvigorated when one of them inherits a fortune.

In between shoots, Ismail continues to live in Damascus with his family. From 2014-15, he ran a comedy club at which the acts discussed the on-going conflict, but this has since disbanded and most of the performers are dispersed across the globe.

Ismail, however, says he has no plans to leave Syria permanently for the time being. “It’s my country and I took the decision to remain. I want to live through these times even though it’s dangerous. I want to see the truth rather than learn about what’s happening via the media,” he explains. “If in the future I want to do a project about the war and the suffering of the people, I’ll understand better what they went through because I was there.”

When back at home, Ismail runs drama workshops for high-school students and is writing the script for a TV drama that explores the period leading up to the war.

Melanie Goodfellow Contact Samer Ismail samer.ismaeel@gmail.com

December 9, 2016 Screen International at Dubai 9

SPOTLIGHT DIFF JURIES

THE JURY’S IN

Four renowned international film-makers in town to serve on DIFF juries talk to Geoffrey Macnab

ANN MARIE FLEMING

The Muhr Feature jury member on the privilege of being part of the judging process Ann Marie Fleming has a colourful background.

The Asian-Canadian director, writer and visual artist is the great-granddaughter of the “worldfamous, globe-hopping Chinese vaudevillian acrobat and magician Long Tack Sam”, as she describes him. Fleming never met the great man, who died the year before she was born, but she made an animated film about his life, The Magical Life Of Long Tack Sam, in 2003.

“Animation is a direct connection to him, as the first films were animated and were collaborations ULRIKE OTTINGER between photographers and magicians,” Fleming explains. “Finding out about his life, I was able to The German film-maker and president of the Muhr Feature make sense of the choices of a lot of his far-flung jury looks forward to immersing herself in Arab cinema family, including my own. Seems we’re all chips off the old block, in some way.”

The renowned German feminist film-maker, photogIt is Fleming’s first time in Dubai and she is rapher and artist Ulrike Ottinger wrote her first screenembracing the opportunity to spend time with ‘It’s very interesting in a situation play, The Mongolian Double Drawer, in 1966 when she her fellow jury members, discussing the merits of of political and social upheaval to was living in Paris and steeping herself in structuralfilm-making. An experienced juror, Fleming is watch the films of different Arab ism and the work of the Nouvelle Vague. aware what a privilege it is to bestow an award on a film-maker. “It can make a difference in how After moving to Berlin in the 1970s, Ottinger went directors with different voices’ the film is perceived in the marketplace, or on to make Madame X in 1977, her celebrated and Ulrike Ottinger help with future funding for the filmcontroversial ‘lesbian feminist pirate movie’ in which the main character invites a group of makers,” she says. bored women to join her on a rampage on the explore the social and cultural movements of the Fleming’s recent animated feature, Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphhigh seas. Since then, she has directed many period. This was a heady time of student protests and other experimental features and documentapolitical radicalism that coincided with a great flowerany Of Rosie Ming,, is set at a poetry festival in Iran. It screened at Annecy and ries. Highlights include her Berlin trilogy, ing in French film-making. Ottinger is uniquely qualithen at Toronto earlier this year. The which began with Ticket Of No Return (1979) fied to tell this story as she was there herself, in the voice cast includes her fellow jury memand continued with Freak Orlando (1981) and thick of the action. Ottinger is also working on a vamber Shohreh Aghdashloo, Camyar ChaiDorian Gray In The Mirror Of The Yellow Press pire feature film about which she is not ready to reveal chian, Ellen Page, Nancy Kwan and (1984). She has also directed a series of long docany further details. umentaries based on her travels in Asia, among She is looking forward to the new Arab cinema to be Sandra Oh. them China, The Arts — The People (1985). found here at DIFF. “It’s very interesting in a situation “My representation [of Iran] comes out Window Horses: of my own experiences, the experiences of The German director remains as busy as ever, of political and social upheaval to watch the films of The Poetic people I care for, my research and my and has several projects on the boil. One is a docdifferent Arab directors with their different voices, Persian Epiphany Of Rosie Ming imagination,” Fleming explains. umentary about the 1960s in Paris, which will how they sense the situation in their countries,” she start with the end of the Algerian war and observes.

10 Screen International at Dubai December 9, 2016

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Imperativ Film

YOUSRY NASRALLAH

The Egyptian director and Muhr Emirati jury president explains why films are like postcards Yousry Nasrallah enjoys a long association with DIFF. The Egyptian director has been making films since the late 1980s and has been a regular attendee, presenting his own movies, sitting on juries and giving talks.

“Dubai is a very important meeting place for Arab film-makers and a great venue for Egyptian and Arab films to gain exposure in the Gulf area,” he says.

Arab films, he points out, were once very popular in the Gulf region. “But they started being replaced by Indian and American films. But now there is a renaissance of interest in quality Arab films,” Nasrallah notes.

He sees DIFF as an important factor in continuing this renaissance.

SERGEI LOZNITSA

The head of the Muhr Short and Gulf Short competition jury talks about the ethics of film-making and the region’s talent

Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa is a DIFF regular. He was at the festival in 2010 with his first feature My Joy, came back in 2012 with In The Fog and presented Maidan, his documentary about the Ukrainian revolution, here in 2014. Loznitsa says he often receives invitations to sit on festival juries but tends to turn them down because he is too busy ‘Films are a window on the world, filming, editing or writing.

“Every once in a while I make an exception,” he postcards from the country they smiles. “When I was invited to be a juror at DIFF, came from. They tell us what I thought it would be an honour and a pleasure to contribute to the work of this festival in such a way.” people see and what they feel’ Throughout the autumn, the film-maker has Yousry Nasrallah been on the road with Austerlitz, his provocative documentary exploring what he describes as “Hol“You have the opportunity to see a lot of films and to ocaust tourism”. It premiered at Venice and has just see themes in film-making,” Nasrallah says of being a won the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig. juror. “It’s a joy but it is also a very difficult task.

“My intention was to address the phenomenon, which I found profoundly disturbing and difficult “Films are a window on the world, postcards from the country they came from,” he continues. “They to come to terms with,” says Loznitsa. “I wanted tell us what people see and what they feel.” to make this film in order to rationalise this phenomenon. As far as I am concerned, I found the Nasrallah’s most recent feature Brooks, Meadows answer.

And Lovely Faces played in Locarno and Toronto and screens in DIFF’s Arabian Nights section. In 2012, “Tourists should not be prevented from visithe was in Competition at Cannes with After ing sites of atrocities [but] the rituals of memoThe Battle (Baad El Mawkeaa). rialisation have to be reinvented,” he explains.

Early in his career, Nasrallah worked as “The whole concept of a ‘memorial of a mass an assistant director to Youssef Chahine, a killing’ should be redefined if we, as a society, towering figure in 20th-century Egyptian really want to preserve these memories and cinema. He still credits the film-maker as educate our citizens about the crimes comone of his most important mentors. mitted by their predecessors.”

“I learned a kind of discipline that will Loznitsa works in both documentary and allow you to realise a dream,” he says of his time fiction, and he believes the difference with Chahine. “The script is like a dream and between the two forms is one of ethics — Brooks, Meadows And Lovely Faces then the task of directing is to go into every and budget. “For example, one cannot detail of that dream and try to make it real.”

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‘There is an abundance of urgent, painful and crucial subjects that need to be addressed by local film-makers’ Sergei Loznitsa

Austerlitz

shoot a person committing suicide in a documentary film,” he muses. “Or, indeed, if one does, it would make the audience question the author’s moral standards to such an extent that it would render the whole process of watching such a film practically irrelevant. Another difference between fiction and documentary is the budget. It’s much cheaper to make documentaries, so there’s a certain liberty, freedom to experiment in the genre.”

His experience of the Middle East is so far limited to the visits to DIFF and several trips to Israel.

“I know there is a lot of creative energy in the region and there is certainly an abundance of urgent, painful and crucial subjects that need to be s addressed by the local film-makers,” he says. ■

December 9, 2016 Screen International at Dubai 11

DUBAI FILM CONNECTION PROFILES

Algeria Is Still Far Away

Farha

Haifa Street

Dir Omar Haffaf

Dir Darin J Sallam

Dir Mohanad Hayal

Project’s countries of origin Algeria-France

Project’s country of origin Jordan

Project’s countries of origin Iraq-Qatar

A desire to return to his Algerian roots prompted Omar Haffaf, who left in the 1990s for France where he studied and taught political science in Toulouse, to train his documentary eye on his home city of Tizi Ouzou. It is here, on the outskirts of this northern enclave, that Chinese workers are building a new city at breakneck speed. The task of bridging the gap between exiled Chinese labourers and a resistant local Algerian population falls to Madame Li, the Chinese interpreter who becomes the powerful central figure in the documentary.

“I wanted to come back to my native country to tell stories I have never seen before,” says Haffaf, who is looking for production funding. “Documentary films on Algeria are focused on the past — the war between France and Algeria, colonisation and decolonisation, and the civil war of the 1990s. The Chinese frame is a way to speak about Algeria’s future. I want to tell a story about people in their daily life, and telling such a story from the point of view of a woman in a male universe makes my project even more distinctive.”

AGAT Films & Cie, the production entity behind this project, is a collective of French producers created more than 30 years ago with a long list of narrative and non-fiction films that have screened at festivals around the world. Haffaf ’s 2015 short documentary Between The Lines examined how administrators in Biarritz try to deal with the influx of immigrants and the related issues of identity. Like that film, Algeria Is Still Far Away is a portrait of a whole country seen through the lens of one small corner during a turning point of history.

Colin Brown

For her feature debut, Darin J Sallam reached into her past to retell a true story of a young girl living in an Arab Palestinian village whose life is turned upsidedown when soldiers of the newly declared state of Israel take over the neighbouring village. As inhabitants start to flee, she is hidden away in a pantry where her only connection to the outside world is a small hole of light and air.

“There are only a few movies from the Arab world about 1948 Palestine, and those are mainly focused on the war itself, the political decisions that were made at the time, and the causes and aspects of war. Which makes it easy to forget the simple life of a 12-year-old and how it could be affected,” says Sallam. “That is why Farha appealed to me, because it explores the human aspect that is overlooked most of the time.”

Sallam plans to film in Jordan to recreate life in mid-century Palestine. “I will focus and devote a lot of time and effort to find the right Farha,” she says.

“I’m planning to cast a non-actress, although there is a well-known Palestinian actor who has shown interest in playing a main role. One of the reasons I like to work with children is the endless possibility — and challenge — of extracting real performances from them.”

Farha is being produced by TaleBox, a Jordanian company that brings together Sallam with producer Deema Azar and artistic director Nedal Sallam, all as managing partners. Sallam’s background includes multiple awards for short films, one of which, The Parrot, is premiering here in the Muhr Shorts section.

Colin Brown

Tense family drama Haifa Street takes its name from one of the most dangerous locations during the 2006 civil war in Baghdad. Iraqi film-maker Mohanad Hayal was walking home from college with a friend on Haifa Street when they found themselves under a hail of sniper bullets.

As Hayal recalls: “A man who was walking a few steps ahead of us was shot dead and we ran into the closest house for safety. We came to find out the family that had let us in were the dead man’s relatives, and they were panicking and trying to figure out how to get his body off the street. In those harrowing moments a million and one questions swirled in my head. Why was that man killed? What are his family dynamics? What was the sniper’s story? The whole situation was visceral and insane and I began to write the script in an attempt to rationalise what happened.

“The main thing that pushed me to tell this story — as a young Iraqi man living in Baghdad — is that war isn’t just about death,” Hayal continues. “It’s also about life after death, as in the aftermath of loss on so many levels — death, emigration, imprisonment…

This is something Iraqis have had to deal with for a long time.”

Haifa Street, a final draft of which has been completed with the early support of Doha Film Institute, will be the first foray into full-length narrative features for Hayal’s production company Dream Group, which is affiliated to the Iraqi Independent Film Center co-founded by Oday Rasheed and Mohamed Al Daradji.

Colin Brown

Algeria Is Still Far Away

Farha

Haifa Street

Producer Marie Balducchi Production company AGAT Films & Cie Budget $230,000 Finance raised to date $86,500 (development support from CNC) Contact

Producer Deema Azar Production company TaleBox Budget $511,500 Finance raised to date $55,000 Contact Darin J Sallam darin.sallam@gmail.com

Producer Hala Alsalaman Production company Dream Group Budget $383,500 Finance raised to date $58,000 Contact Hala Alsalaman

Marie Balducchi

marie.balducchi@agatfilms.com

12 Screen International at Dubai December 9, 2016

Deema Azar

deema.azar@talebox.org

halalsalman@hotmail.com

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SCREENINGS, PAGE 14

A Girl Made Of Dust

Western Arabs

From A Palm Tree To The Stars

Dir Hiam Abbass

Dir Omar Shargawi

Dir Leila Albayaty

Project’s countries of origin Lebanon-France-

Project’s countries of origin Denmark-Egypt-

Project’s countries of origin Iraq-France-

Germany

Palestine

Germany

An internationally renowned actress whose directorial debut Inheritance competed at both the Venice and Karlovy Vary film festivals, Hiam Abbass is finalising the script for her eagerly anticipated adaptation of Nathalie Abi-Ezzi’s 2008 novel A Girl Made Of Dust. The story is set during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, and is based on the author’s personal experiences of the conflict. It is about eight-year-old Ruba, who lives in a village near Beirut as civil war divides her country. Her father’s depression threatens their livelihood, while her brother runs wild with boys that have guns.

“I connected immediately with Ruba’s journey.

Somehow, she reminded me of the child I was,” says Abbass, who was approached two years ago by French producer Jean-Christophe Barret to direct the adaptation by writer Steve Hawes.

“Having lived through a few wars myself, Ruba’s journey throws me back into my early years when I was swinging between two worlds, one abrupt and brutal, caused by the damage of the war, and the other a child’s world, full of naivety, fantasy and magic,” says Abbass. “In Ruba’s case, as in mine, war replaced our dreams with a harsh reality that made us grow up fast. This reality was imposed on us by adults who were supposed to protect us.

“This is one of the rare opportunities in Arab cinema where we tell the story of a child victim of war from his or her own point of view,” adds Abbass. “This movie will be told in a different way, as in a fairy tale, though it will deal with a very serious subject.”

Colin Brown

The autobiographical is never far away in Omar Shargawi’s intense set of films, which has often explored the trauma that comes from being suspended between two different cultures. Born of a Danish mother and a Palestinian father, the former photographer was raised in Copenhagen. His 2008 debut feature Go With Peace Jamil was a success on the international film circuit, where it won the top VPRO Tiger Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam.

His most recent film, Al Medina, premiered at DIFF in 2015. Eight years since his debut, Shargawi is looking once more to Copenhagen. Described as a ‘hybrid documentary’, Western Arabs is both an historical and intimately self-referential story based on the lives of those who grew up around him. The film will fuse fiction and non-fiction to reflect on emotional events.

“This is a documentary based on footage over the last 25 years of family and friends. It’s a portrait of a mixed Danish/Palestinian family. About Arabian dreams that become European nightmares, and vice versa.

“Racism and prejudice are growing all over Europe. That’s why I feel I have to finish this film based on pain and love, to make my family and friends represent the thing they are all afraid of — the scared white people — and show them how human, for good and for bad, Arabs actually can be.”

Helping to shape that vision is Snowglobe, the new Copenhagen production powerhouse that comes with strong international film-making credentials, having just won a Silver Lion at Venice for Amat Escalante’s The Untamed and the Golden Leopard at Locarno for Ralitza Petrova’s Godless.

Colin Brown

Leila Albayaty is an Iraqi-French film-maker and singer-songwriter. Her last four films have been documentaries or autobiographical features that, she says, dealt with the question of ‘the journey’ — but none of them dealt explicitly with her Arab heritage. Her father was born in Baghdad; after years of activism and imprisonment in Cairo, he left for Paris as a political refugee in 1971, where he met his French wife.

“I grew up with a double culture,” says Albayaty.

“When I was 18, it was crucial to me to understand where I came from. I went to Iraq, where I discovered my family and a country terribly traumatised. When I returned, I was unable to speak about what I’d experienced, and then I had a terrible accident in Bordeaux.

A car knocked me down and I suffered amnesia for a while. I travelled a lot with my films through festivals and music tours. During these years, I didn’t speak much of this buried Iraqi part of me. I was able to adapt for a certain time as I didn’t speak Arabic or look like an Arab. But finally, this part of me that I discarded caught up with me.” A decade after her first journey to Iraq, Albayaty went to Egypt to shoot scenes for her most recent feature, Berlin Telegram.

“When my father heard the music that I composed for the film, he started to write songs in Arabic for me.

That was the trigger point of [From A Palm Tree To The Stars]. I wanted to speak about the transmission of Arab culture through music,” says Albayaty.

Now in pre-production, with plans to shoot in spring 2017, the film is being produced by Albayaty’s regular Berlin-based collaborator Michel Balagué and France’s Francois-Pierre Clavel.

Colin Brown

Western Arabs

From A Palm Tree To The Stars

Producer Eva Jakobsen Production company Snowglobe Budget $400,000 Finance raised to date $100,000 Contact Snowglobe info@snowglobefilm.com

Producer Michel Balagué Production companies Kidam, Michel Balagué Budget $180,000 Finance raised to date $80,000 Contact Michel Balagué

A Girl Made Of Dust Producers Sabine Sidawi, Jean-Christophe Barret, Oliver Huzly Production companies Orjouane Productions, Alliance de Production Cinematographique, Baby Blue Pictures Budget $2m Finance raised $430,000 Contact Sabine Sidawi rshamdan@cyberia.net.lb

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michel.balague@gmail.com

December 9, 2016 Screen International at Dubai 13

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

17:00

10:45 HEARTSTRINGS (LE COEUR EN BRAILLE)

(France) Gaumont.

89mins. Drama, family, music. Dir: Michel Boujenah. Cast: Charles Berling, Alix Vaillot, Jean-Stan Du Pac. Twelve-year-old Marie, a promising violinist, suffers from a degenerative eye disease. Her parents are anxious for her future and decide to enroll her in an institute for the blind. Marie, however, intends to compete for a spot in a prestigious music school and decides to hide her condition so she can avoid joining the institute.

To achieve her goal, she convinces classmate Victor to help her. He soon ends up as her eyes.

Cinema for Children Souk Madinat Theatre Public

11:00 WHEN ALL LAND IS LOST, WILL WE EAT COAL?

(India) 7mins. Nonfiction, virtual reality.

Dir: Faiza Ahmad Khan.

Decades of mining has ravaged Korba, a small district in central India. Its air and water are severely contaminated and the people’s lives have been blighted. This film is a telling commentary on the present-day development paradigm.

DIFFerent Reality 02 The du VR Cinema by Samsung Public

13:00 LAKE BAIKAL: THE SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY OF EXTREME WATER — EPISODE 1: WINTER SPIRIT

(Russia, US) 7mins.

Non-fiction, virtual reality.

Dir: Georgy Molodtsov, Michael Owen.

Five brief virtual reality scenes introduce viewers to the icy winter landscape around Lake Baikal in Siberia.

DIFFerent Reality 03 The du VR Cinema by Samsung Public

14:00 SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS See box, above

OBLIVIUS

(China) TCL Communication — Alcatel. 3mins. Music, non-fiction, virtual reality.

Dir: Romain Levices.

Cast: Kevin Pollak, Xi Ning.

In the underworld, where time is precious, two souls meet. They dance to love and death.

DIFFerent Reality 05 The du VR Cinema by Samsung Public

17:30 THE WAR SHOW

FESTIVAL 14:00 SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS

(US) 97mins.

Adventure, family. Dir: Philippa Lowthorpe.

Cast: Kelly Macdonald, Andrew Scott, Jessica Hynes, Bobby McCulloch, Orla Hill.

Four children — the Swallows — are on

14:30 FRANTZ

(France, Germany) Films Distribution. 113mins.

Drama. Dir: Francois Ozon. Cast: Paula Beer, Pierre Niney, Ernst Stotzner.

In the aftermath of the First World War, a German girl who grieves over the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious man who visits his grave to lay flowers.

Cinema of the World Vox 03 Public

14:45 NERUDA

(Chile, France, Spain, Argentina) Funny Balloons. 108mins.

Biography, drama. Dir: Pablo Larrain. Cast: Luis Gnecco, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mercedes Moran.

A police inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda,

14 Screen International at Dubai December 9, 2016

holiday in the UK’s Lake District. They sail to an island and start a war with a group of rival children — the Amazons.

In the meantime, a mysterious man on a houseboat accuses them of a crime they did not commit.

Cinema for Children Madinat Arena Gala

who in the late 1940s becomes a fugitive in his home country after joining the Communist Party.

Cinema of the World Vox 17 Public

THE ROAD TO MANDALAY

(Taiwan, France, Germany, Myanmar) Urban Distribution International. 108mins.

Drama. Dir: Midi Z. Cast: Ke-Xi Wu, Kai Ko. Two Burmese immigrants flee their country’s civil war in search of a new life.

Cinema of the World Vox 13 Public

15:00 CERTAIN WOMEN

(US) Sony Pictures Releasing. 107mins.

Drama. Dir: Kelly Reichardt. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, Laura Dern, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone.

The lives of three women

intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail.

Cinema of the World Vox 06 Public

DEFROST

(US) Circle VR. 5mins.

Science fiction, virtual reality. Dir: Randal Kleiser. Cast: Bruce Davison, Harry Hamlin, Carl Weathers.

After being cryogenically frozen for 30 years, Joan Garrison awakens to meet her aged family.

DIFFerent Reality 04 The du VR Cinema by Samsung Public

LIKE CRAZY (LA PAZZA GIOIA)

(France, Italy) Bac Films.

116mins. Comedy, drama.

Dir: Paolo Virzi. Cast: Micaela Ramazzotti, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

Donatella and Beatrice reside in a psychiatric facility in Tuscany. They have very different life stories but a chance to escape brings them together in an adventure that will change their lives forever and help them realise the beauty in imperfection.

Cinema of the World Vox 14 Public

15:15 AFTER THE STORM (UMI YORI MO MADA FUKATU)

(Japan) Wild Bunch.

117mins. Drama.

Dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda.

Cast: Hiroshi Abe, Yoko Maki, Kirin Kiki.

Dwelling on his past glory as a prize-winning author, Ryota gambles away the money he makes as a private detective, and can barely pay child support.

After the death of his father, his ageing mother and beautiful ex-wife seem to be moving on with their lives. Renewing contact with his initially distrusting family, Ryota struggles to find a lasting place in the life of his young son — until a stormy summer night offers them a chance to bond again.

Cinema of the World Vox 05 Public

THE OATH (EIURINN)

(Iceland) XYZ Films.

110mins. Crime, drama, thriller. Dir: Baltasar Kormakur. Cast: Baltasar Kormakur, Hera Hilmar, Gisli Orn Garoarsson.

A father tries to pull his daughter out of her world of drugs and petty crime, only to find that danger can be found in unexpected places.

Cinema of the World Vox 04 Public

16:30 IN CONVERSATION WITH SAMUEL L JACKSON

(Denmark, Finland, Syria) 104mins. Non-fiction. Dir: Obaidah Zytoon, Andreas Dalsgaard. Cast: Amal, Houssam, Lulu, Hisham.

A radio DJ shares her experiences in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

Arabian Nights Vox 13 Public

18:00 ON THE MILKY ROAD (NA MLIJECNOM PUTU)

(Serbia, UK, US) Wild Bunch. 125mins. Drama, fantasy, war. Dir: Emir Kusturica. Cast: Emir Kusturica, Monica Bellucci, Sergej Trifunovic.

A story that deals with war, blossoming love and life as a recluse.

Cinema of the World Vox 14 Public

THE WORTHY

(UAE) IM Global.

100mins. Thriller. Dir: Ali F Mostafa. Cast: Ali Suliman, Samer Almasri, Rakeen Saad, Mahmoud Al Atrash, Habib Ghuloom, Samer Ismael.

In a dystopian future, a group of survivors seek refuge with the only source of clean water in the area.

Two visitors infiltrate their compound and they become pawns in a test for survival where only one shall be chosen worthy.

Muhr Emirati Madinat Arena Gala/Jury

18:15

60mins. Dir: Events during DIFF.

ONE MORE TIME WITH FEELING

Souk Madinat Theatre Public

(France, UK) Picturehouse www.screendaily.com

FURTHER DIFF COVERAGE, SEE SCREENDAILY.COM

Cinemas/Picturehouse Entertainment. 112mins.

Music, non-fiction.

Dir: Andrew Dominik.

Cast: Nick Cave, Else Torp, Susie Cave.

Explores the creative process of Nick Cave and his band as the singer struggles with personal tragedy.

Cinema of the World Vox 06 Public

TRAMONTANE (RABIH)

SAMI BLOOD (SAMEBLOD)

(Sweden, Denmark, Norway) LevelK. 110mins.

Drama. Dir: Amanda Kernell. Cast: Lene Cecilia Sparrok, Maj-Doris Rimpi.

Elle, 14, is a reindeerbreeding Sami girl. Exposed to the racism of the 1930s, she starts dreaming of another life. To achieve this she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and culture.

(Lebanon, Qatar, UAE, France) The Bureau Sales.

105mins. Drama. Dir: Vatche Boulghourjian.

Cast: Michel Adabachi, Toufic Barakat, Barakat Jabbour, Julia Kassar.

The life of a young blind man in Lebanon unravels when he tries to apply for a passport and discovers his identification card is forged.

Cinema of the World Vox 17 Public

Muhr Feature Souk Madinat Theatre Public

(Jordan, Germany, Netherlands, Qatar, UAE) Beta Cinema. 83mins.

Comedy, drama. Dir: Mahmoud al Massad.

Cast: Ahmad Thaher, Maher Khammash, Odai Hijazi.

A construction worker is tangled up in an unfortunate business deal, resulting in imprisonment.

In jail he meets a fraudster who ruins his last hope to prove his innocence.

18:30 I AM NOT MADAME BOVARY (WO BU SHI PAN JIN LIAN)

(China) Wild Bunch.

139mins. Drama. Dir: Feng Xiaogang. Cast: Fan Bingbing, Guo Tao, Da Peng.

After being swindled by her ex-husband, a woman takes on the Chinese legal system.

Cinema of the World Vox 01 Public

Cinema of the World Vox 05 Public

www.screendaily.com

DIFFerent Reality 01 The du VR Cinema by Samsung Public

19:30 MALI BLUES

SAMSUNG SHORT FILM CONTEST

60mins. Dir: Events during DIFF. The Beach Public

18:45 BLESSED BENEFIT (INSHALLAH ESTAFADIT)

Muhr Feature Vox 03 Public

THE NET (GEUMUL)

(South Korea) Finecut.

114mins. Drama. Dir: Kim Ki-duk. Cast: Ryoo Seungbum, Kim Young-min, Lee Won-keun.

A North Korean fisherman sees his boat engine break down, and he drifts to South Korea. After enduring many brutal investigations, he is sent back to the North. But before leaving South Korea, he sees the contrasting sides of a developed country.

He realises economic development does not spell happiness for all the people.

Once he returns home, he receives similar treatment as experienced in the South, and feels great sadness as a human being trapped in the ideology between the two divided countries.

Studios. 9mins. Nonfiction, virtual reality.

Dir: Sarah Hill.

Step into the lives of the Virunga park rangers in eastern Congo and the Munduruku tribe in the Amazon rainforest to see how a lack of affordable power is threatening lives and sacred lands.

LITTLE EAGLES (AL NOSSOUR AL SAGHERA)

(Egypt, Lebanon) 77mins.

Creative documentary.

Dir: Mohamed Rashad.

Mohammed, the son of a simple worker, lives in Alexandria and dreams of moving to Cairo to become a film-maker. There he meets Salma and Bassam, and is impressed by their self-confidence. When Mohammed discovers Salma and Bassam’s parents were left-wing activists in the 1970s, he looks for a similar sense of purpose in his own father’s life.

Muhr Feature Vox 04 Public

19:00 ARE YOU LISTENING?: AMAZON & CONGO

(Brazil, Congo) StoryUP

(Germany) 93mins. Nonfiction, music. Dir: Lutz Gregor. Cast: Bassekou Kouyate, Ahmed Ag Kaedi, Fatoumata Diawara.

The story of four musicians who refuse to accept hatred, suspicion, violence and a radical interpretation of Islam in their country.

The Beach Public The screening is followed by a live performance by the band Amanar, which is featured in the film.

20:45 THE WOMAN WHO LEFT (ANG BABAENG HUMAYO)

(Philippines) Films Boutique. 228mins.

Drama. Dir: Lav Diaz.

Cast: Charo SantosConcio, John Lloyd Cruz.

After 30 years of wrongful imprisonment, a woman plans her revenge.

Cinema of the World Vox 13 Public

21:15 WAITING LIST (INTITHAR)

(UAE) 85mins. Drama, romance. Dir: Khalid Ali, Hani Al Shaibani. Cast: Mariam Sultan, Khalid Ali, Adel Ibrahim.

Khalid, Fatima, Ahmad, Shareefa and Bilal experience life-changing moments that shift their lives onto different paths.

They live in a state of permanent waiting — for dreams and a sense of purpose.

Muhr Emirati Vox 14 Public

YOUR NAME (KIMI NO NA WA)

(Japan) 106mins.

Animation. Dir: Makoto Shinkai.

Two high-school kids who have never before met — city boy Taki and country girl Mitsuha — are united through their dreams.

Cinema of the World Vox 06 Public

21:30 THE TEACHER (UCITELKA)

(Czech Republic, Slovak Republic) LevelK. 102mins. Comedy, drama.

Dir: Jan Hrebejk. Cast: Zuzana Maurery, Peter Bebjak, Eva Bandor.

In 1983, a new teacher arrives at a suburban Bratislava school and turns life upside-down for the students and their parents.

Cinema of the World Vox 05 Public

THEIR FINEST

(UK) Front Row Filmed Entertainment. 110mins.

Comedy, drama, romance.

Dir: Lone Scherfig. Cast: Sam Claflin, Gemma Arterton, Bill Nighy.

A British film crew attempts to boost morale during the Second World War by making a propaganda film after the Blitzkrieg.

Cinema of the World Madinat Arena Gala

WITHERED GREEN (AKHDAR YABES)

(Egypt) 73mins. Social, drama. Dir: Mohammed Hammad. Cast: Heba Ali, Tamer Abdel Hamid, Asmaa Fawzi, John Ekram Hanna, Ahmed Al Aidy.

The story of young Iman, who takes people’s opinions of her into account and adheres to all the withering social traditions with commitment. However, a shocking discovery prompts her to do away with all those traditions to which she once clung.

Muhr Feature Vox 17 Public

21:45 ABRAHAM

(Iraq, Germany, Italy) 8mins. Fiction. Dir: Ali Kareem Obaid. Cast: Sara El Debuch, Mohamed Zouaoui, Basil Al Ali, Faisal Dasser, Wolf Layban.

Set against the backdrop of Isis’s imposition of the ‘jizya’ or tax on nonMuslims in its territories, a Christian family devises a plan to protect its only daughter. However, their solution might have more tragic consequences than intended.

Muhr Gulf Short 01 Vox 03 Public

OFF FRAME AKA REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY (KHAREJ AL-ITAR AW THAWRA HATA EL NASSER)

(France, Palestine, Lebanon, Qatar) Future Logic. 62mins. Political thriller. Dir: Mohanad Yaqubi. Cast: Mustafa Abu Ali, Hani Jawharieh, Sulafa Jadallah.

A film-maker watches an archive of films from the period of the Palestinian revolution.

Muhr Feature Vox 04 Public

STILL BURNING (NAR MIN NAR)

(Lebanon, UAE) 110mins.

Drama. Dir: Georges Hachem. Cast: Adila Bendimerad, Wajdi Mouawad, Fadi Abi Samra, Rodrigue Sleiman, Rami Nihawi.

Andre, a Lebanese filmmaker living and working in France, unexpectedly meets Walid, a dear friend from his youth. When they were in Beirut together during the civil war, Andre and Walid were driven by the same artistic vocation: cinema; not to mention the the same woman, Amira.

Will their reunion revive repressed demons from their past?

Muhr Feature Souk Madinat Theatre Public

22:30 LADY MACBETH

(UK) Front Row Filmed Entertainment. 89mins.

Drama. Dir: William Oldroyd. Cast: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis.

A tale set in the 19th-century, as a headstrong young bride is sold into marriage.

Cinema of the World Vox 01 Public

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.com Contributor Colin Brown, colinbrown1@earthlink.net Features editor Louise Tutt, tuttlouise@gmail.com Group head of production and art Mark Mowbray, mark. mowbray@screendaily.com Sub editors Paul Lindsell, Adam Richmond, Richard Young Publishing director Nadia Romdhani, nadia. romdhani@screendaily.com, +44 7540 100 315 Senior sales manager Scott Benfold, scott.benfold@ screendaily.com, +44 7765 257 260 Sales executives Pierre-Louis Manes, pierre-louis.manes@ screendaily.com Gunter Zerbich, gunter. zerbich@screendaily.com Ingrid Hammond, ingridhammond@mac.com Production manager Jonathon Cooke, jonathon. cooke@mb-insight.com Group commercial director, MBI Alison Pitchford, alison. pitchford@mb-insight.com Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam Printer Atlas Group, Street 26, Al Quoz 4, PO Box 14833, Dubai, +971 4 340 9895, admin@atlasgroupme.com

Screen International London 1st floor unit F2/G, Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4HJ Tel: +44 20 3033 4267 Subscription enquiries Tel: +44 (0) 330 333 9414, help@subscribe.screendaily. com

in association with Chime Consulting

December 9, 2016 Screen International at Dubai 15

‫شاهد اليوم‬

‫اجلمعة ‪ 9‬ديسمرب‬

‫املهر اإلماراتي‬

‫اخملتارون‬ ‫‪ 18:15‬‬

‫ ‬

‫إنتظار‬ ‫ ‬

‫مدرج املدينة‬

‫يخ��وض مجموعة من الناجين صراعا للبقاء على قيد الحياة‪ ،‬والحفاظ على المصدر الوحيد‬ ‫المتبق��ي للمي��اه النقية‪ .‬ينجح مجموعة من اللصوص بالتس��لّل‪ ،‬ويظهر اثن��ان من الغرباء‬ ‫للمس��اعدة في محاربة اللصوص‪ ،‬فيقوم قائد الناجين بالس��ماح لهما بالبقاء ‪ //‬تع ّم فوضى‬ ‫عارمة بعد مقتل أفراد المجموعة واحدا ً تلو اآلخر‪ ،‬فيما ينقلب البقية ضد بعضهم البعض‪.‬‬

‫ ‬

‫‪ 21:15‬‬

‫ ‬

‫مول اإلمارات‪ ،‬فوكس ‪14‬‬

‫خالد وفاطمة وأحمد وش��ريفة وبالل؛ خمس شخصيات تعيش مواقف مفصلية في حياتها‪.‬‬ ‫مواقف من ش��أنها أن ترس��م طرقاً جديدة لحيواتهم‪ .‬كل منهم يعيش حالة االنتظار الدائمة‬ ‫ألحالم ومآرب يبحثون عنها‪ .‬بعضهم يبحث من قبيل األمل‪ ،‬والبعض اآلخر ألنه ال يملك حالً‬ ‫آخر سوى االنتظار‪.‬‬

‫املهر اخلليجي القصري‬ ‫ ‬

‫‪ 21:45-23:06‬‬

‫مول اإلمارات‪ ،‬فوكس ‪3‬‬

‫يب��دأ اليوم الجمع��ة «مهرجان دبي الس��ينمائي الدولي» بعرض األفالم الروائي��ة‪ ،‬وغير الروائية‪،‬‬ ‫المش��اركة في مس��ابقة «المهر الخليجي القصير»‪ ،‬والتي تضم مجموعة واس��عة من األفالم‪ ،‬في‬ ‫عرضها العالمي األول‪ ،‬يعبّر من خاللها المخرجون عن ثقافاتهم‪ ،‬وآرائهم المختلفة‪ ،‬التي تعكس‬ ‫واقع الحياة في المنطقة‪ .‬وتهدف المس��ابقة إلى تعزيز نمو المواهب الخليجية‪ ،‬وجعل السينما‬ ‫العربية مح ّط أنظار المجتمع السينمائي الدولي‪.‬‬

‫سينما العامل‬

‫املهر الطويل‬

‫ابراهام‬

‫ثوب العرس‬

‫األشقر‬

‫جلسات سوق دبي السينمائي احلوارية‬

‫حوار مع‬

‫ربيع‬

‫املدرِّسة‬

‫ ‬

‫‪19:00‬‬

‫ ‬

‫‪21:30‬‬

‫ ‬

‫مدرج املدينة‬

‫ ‬

‫مول اإلمارات‪ ،‬فوكس ‪5‬‬

‫تصط��دم السياس��ة بالتعليم في ه��ذا الفيلم‬ ‫الدرام��ي المبه��ر‪ ،‬والت��ي ت��دور أحداثه في‬ ‫براتيسالفا‪ ،‬في آخر عهد الشيوعية‪ ،‬في مطلع‬ ‫ثمانينات القرن العش��رين‪ ،‬إذ تطلب رئيس��ة‬ ‫الحزب الشيوعي المحلي؛ الرفيقة درازديخوفا‬ ‫م��ن طلبتها أن يع ّرفوها بأهاليهم‪ ،‬لتس��تخدم‬ ‫عالقاتها في التالعب بهم‪ ،‬وباألطفال‪ ،‬لغاياتها‬ ‫الخاصة‪.‬‬

‫ ‬

‫‪16:30‬‬

‫ ‬

‫مسرح سوق املدينة‬

‫نشرة يومية تصدر باللغة العربية خالل فعاليات الدورة‬ ‫الـ ‪ 13‬من «مهرجان دبي السينمائي الدولي»‬ ‫رئيس التحرير‬

‫بشار إبراهيم‬

‫‪bashar62@gmail.com‬‬ ‫‪ 09‬ديسمرب ‪2016‬‬

‫‪12/9/16 12:54 AM‬‬

‫بالعـــربية‬

‫ربيع ش��اب ضري��ر تنهار حيات��ه عندما يقدّم‬ ‫طلباً للحصول على جواز س��فر‪ ،‬ويكتشف بأن‬ ‫هويته التي يحملها طول حياته مزيفة‪ .‬يسافر‬ ‫إل��ى مختلف أرجاء الريف ف��ي لبنان للبحث‬ ‫عن س��جالت ميالده‪ ،‬ويقابل أفرادا ً يعيش��ون‬ ‫بعيدا ً عن المجتمع‪ ،‬فيروون قصصهم الخاصة‪،‬‬ ‫ويثي��رون المزيد من التس��اؤالت‪ ،‬عن هويته‬ ‫الحقيقية‪.‬‬

‫صاموئيل‬ ‫جاكسون‬

‫يف دبي ‪9‬‬

‫‪Screen Issue 2.indd 9‬‬

‫دعم أكرث من ‪ 300‬مشروع خالل تسع سنوات‬

‫سوق دبي السينمائي‬

‫منصة فريدة لقطاع الرتفيه املرئي‬

‫أكثر من ‪ 300‬مشروع‪ ،‬قدم لها «سوق‬ ‫دبي الس��ينمائي» الدعم منذ انطالقته‬ ‫في ‪ ،2007‬وساهم في نقلها من مرحلة‬ ‫السيناريو إلى السينما‪ ،‬على نحو نالت‬ ‫فيه استحسان نقدي وجماهيري‪ ،‬كرس‬ ‫بدوره الس��وق بوصفه منص��ة عالمية‬ ‫فريدة من نوعها‪ ،‬تس��اهم في تسليط‬ ‫الضوء على أفض��ل اإلنتاجات العربية‪،‬‬ ‫وعرضه��ا على الجمهور العالمي‪ ،‬كجزء‬ ‫من التزامات «مهرجان دبي السينمائي‬ ‫الدولي»‪ ،‬بتحفيز صناعة وتجارة قطاع‬ ‫الترفيه المرئي‪.‬‬ ‫خ�لال تس��ع س��نوات م��ن انطالقته‬ ‫نجح «سوق دبي الس��ينمائي» في أن‬ ‫يكون الوجهة الرئيس��ية لعقد صفقات‬ ‫الشراء واالس��تحواذ لإلنتاجات العربية‬ ‫الس��ينمائية والتلفزيونية‪ ،‬وساعد في‬ ‫التأس��يس وتطوير صناعة السينما في‬ ‫اإلمارات والوطن العربي‪ ،‬عبر ما يوفره‬ ‫من خدمات ومبادرات وشراكات تتيح‬ ‫لخبراء الصناعة والش��ركات من داخل‬ ‫وخارج العالم العربي بتأسيس عالقات‬ ‫عمل تجارية‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 8‬‬

‫‪12/9/16 12:54 AM‬‬

‫املبادرات والربامج‬

‫‪1‬‬

‫ملتقى دبي السينمائي‬ ‫الترويج للسينمائيين العرب وتحفيز نمو‬ ‫اإلنتاج الس��ينمائي في العال��م العربي‪ .‬وم ّد‬ ‫الجسور بين الثقافات‪.‬‬ ‫يجم��ع نحو ‪ 60‬من محترفي الس��ينما العرب‬ ‫والدوليي��ن من أكثر من ‪ 20‬دولة للتعاون في‬ ‫إنتاج حوالي ‪ 10‬مشاريع سينمائية سنوياً‪.‬‬

‫‪2‬‬

‫إجناز‬ ‫بناء صناعة س��ينمائيّة مس��تدامة في‬ ‫المنطق��ة‪ .‬وزيادة ف��رص المبيع��ات الدولية‬ ‫وتوزي��ع األف�لام العربي��ة وترويجه��ا ف��ي‬ ‫المهرجانات واألسواق السينمائية الدولية‪.‬‬ ‫يوف��ر إنجاز دعم��ا ً ماليا ً لمش��اريع األفالم‬ ‫(القصي��رة والطويل��ة) التي يعم��ل عليها‬ ‫المخرج��ون الع��رب ف��ي مرحل��ة ما بعد‬ ‫اإلنت��اج‪ ،‬إضاف��ة لتمويل إنتاج مش��اريع‬ ‫س��ينمائية لمخرجين م��ن منطقة الخليج‬ ‫العربي‪.‬‬

‫‪3‬‬

‫سينيتك‬ ‫مكتبة سوق دبي السينمائي الرقمية‬

‫‪5‬‬

‫تضم أعم��االً طويلة من البرنامج الرس��مي‬ ‫لـ«مهرج��ان دب��ي الس��ينمائي الدول��ي»‪،‬‬ ‫وأخرى يوصي بها السوق‪ ،‬إضافة إلى أعمال‬ ‫من ش��ركاء «سوق دبي السينمائي»‪ ،‬ووكالء‬ ‫المبيعات المشاركين في السوق‪.‬‬ ‫تعتب��ر «س��ينيتك» منصة آمنة الس��تعراض‬ ‫األفالم والتواصل مع وكالء المبيعات‪ ،‬وتوفر‬ ‫العدي��د من الف��رص لعقد صفق��ات البيع‬ ‫والش��راكة‪ ،‬م��ن خالل مس��اعدة الموزعين‬ ‫وش��ركات البث في اإلطالع على األفالم التي‬ ‫يستهدفونها للشراء‪.‬‬

‫املنتدى‬ ‫سلس��لة م��ن الجلس��ات الحواري��ة‪،‬‬ ‫وال��دورات‪ ،‬وورش العم��ل‪ ،‬تجم��ع أفض��ل‬ ‫العق��ول الس��ينمائية م��ن المنطق��ة والعالم‬ ‫لمناقشة أحدث توجهات الصناعة‪ ،‬والمواضيع‬ ‫المطروحة حديثاً‪،‬‬ ‫توفر ن��دوات المهرجان فرصة عقد نقاش��ات‬ ‫معمق��ة وإج��راء مقاب�لات‪ ،‬به��دف تزوي��د‬ ‫الحضور بمجموعة واس��عة النطاق من اآلراء‬ ‫م��ن مختل��ف رواد الصناع��ة‪ ،‬باإلضاف��ة إلى‬ ‫التفاعل وتبادل اآلراء‪.‬‬

‫منصات العرض‬ ‫مركز للسينما العربية ومنصة لتجارة‬ ‫اإلنتاجات العربية الس��ينمائية والتلفزيونية‬ ‫تمث��ل فرص��ة متمي��زة للتفاعل المباش��ر‬ ‫بي��ن ز ّوار المهرجان والمش��اركين فيه من‬ ‫ر ّواد صناع��ة الس��ينما‪ ،‬لع��رض المنتجات‬ ‫والخدمات‪ ،‬وتأس��يس عالق��ات العمل مع‬ ‫كبار ص ّناع القرار إقليمياً ودولياً‪.‬‬ ‫يج��ذب أنظار واهتم��ام صانعي الس��ينما‬ ‫العالمي��ة‪ ،‬ويمنحه��م فرص��ة التعرف على‬ ‫م��ا يقدّمه العالم العرب��ي‪ ،‬فضالً عن إتاحة‬ ‫الفرصة أمام المنتجين من المنطقة للوصول‬ ‫إلى أسواق عالمية‪.‬‬

‫‪6‬‬

‫‪4‬‬

‫برنامج دبي للتوزيع‬ ‫مبادرة لـ«س��وق دبي السينمائي»‬ ‫لمساعدة ص ّناع السينما المستقلة لتوزيع‬ ‫وع��رض أعمالهم عل��ى الجمه��ور إقليميا ً‬ ‫وعالميا ً‪.‬‬ ‫تعاون «مهرجان دبي السينمائي الدولي»‬ ‫مع رواد الصناعة مثل «غلف فيلم»‪ ،‬ودور‬ ‫عرض سينما «فوكس»‪ ،‬و«فرونت رو فيلمد‬ ‫إنترتينمينت»‪ ،‬و«ش��ركة السينما الكويتية‬ ‫الوطنية»‪ ،‬للنهوض بالمش��روع الذي يمنح‬ ‫كل جهة منهما ح��ق اختيار وتوزيع واحد‬ ‫على األق��ل من األعمال الس��ينمائية التي‬ ‫سيعرضها المهرجان خالل ‪.2016‬‬

‫يف دبي ‪ 09‬ديسمرب ‪2016‬‬

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‫«يا عمري»‪ ..‬جدل اإلنسان والزمان‬ ‫والنباهة‪ ،‬تستطيهع أن تنطوي في سيرة حياتها‬ ‫عل��ى حكاية القرن العش��رين بأكمله‪ ،‬وحكاية‬ ‫لبنان كل��ه‪ .‬الذين مكثوا في��ه والذين هاجروا‪.‬‬ ‫الذين عادوا والذين انط��ووا على مبعدة آالف‬ ‫الكيلومترات‪ .‬حكاية تنفرد وتتس��ع‪ ،‬مشهدا ً إثر‬ ‫آخر‪ ،‬ولقطة بعد غيرها‪ ،‬والجدة تبدو في لحظة‬ ‫كأنما هي الم�لاط الذي يجمع أف��راد العائلة‪،‬‬ ‫ويعزز تماس��كهم‪ ،‬بوصفهم أوالً وأحفادا ً حتى‬ ‫ل��و صار األحفاد آباء‪ .‬وف��ي لحظة أخرى صورة‬ ‫اللبناني العابر للقرن العش��رين بثقافته وأناقته‬ ‫وتجاربه م��ن قرية في لبنان إل��ى ضاحية في‬ ‫البرازي��ل‪ .‬وبتحالف مع مدي��ر التصوير الرائعة‬ ‫موريال أب��و الروس‪ ،‬يعرف ه��ادي زكاك كيف‬ ‫يقترب من الجدة المتهالكة أمام ضربات الزمان‪،‬‬ ‫دون أن يخدش صورتها‪ ،‬أو يجرح صفاءها‪ ،‬حتى‬ ‫لو أفلت منها اإلدراك‪ ،‬وغابت عنها الذاكرة‪ ،‬وما‬ ‫عادت تنتبه إلى ه��ادي ذاته‪ ،‬الذي كانت قبل‬ ‫س��نوات تش��عل اللفهة الحتضان��ه‪ ،‬وال عادت‬ ‫تذكّر الش��باب الذين أحبتهم‪ ،‬من تزوجت ومن‬ ‫فارقت‪ .‬وحتى لو غام��ت الصورة في مخيلتها‪،‬‬ ‫تبق��ى هنري��ات باس��تعادات أرش��يفية صورة‬ ‫صافي��ة تتالمح فيها س��يرة ذاك الجدل العنيف‬ ‫بين اإلنسان الزمان‪ ،‬قبيل الرحيل‪.‬‬

‫يع��ود المخ��رج اللبنان��ي المتميز ه��ادي زكاك‬ ‫إلى «مهرجان دبي الس��ينمائي الدولي» بفيلمه‬ ‫الجدي��د «ي��ا عم��ري»‪ .‬ه��ادي زكاك المخ��رج‬ ‫المحترف والمتألق في عالم الفيلم غير الروائي‪،‬‬ ‫والقادر على في كل مرة على اإلضافة إلى المنجز‬ ‫العربي بطريقته الفذة‪ ،‬يأتي هذه المرة بحكاية‬ ‫تبدو ش��خصية‪ ،‬لكنها ال تس��تعصي على اإلدراك‬ ‫ب��أن الفنان الذي طالما حاور التاريخ والجغرافيا؛‬ ‫الزم��ان والم��كان‪ ،‬وحكاي��ة اإلنس��ان بجدله��ا‬ ‫وتعقيداتها‪ ،‬سوق ينطلق مع الجدة هنريات إلى‬ ‫أبعد مما تقوله الشاشة‪ ،‬في سطرها األول‬ ‫«ي��ا عمري» (‪ 83‬دقيقة‪ ،)2016 ،‬س��يرة باذخة‬ ‫للج��دة هنريات‪ ،‬التي عاش��ت ‪ 104‬س��نوات‪.‬‬ ‫كأنم��ا هي ش��ربت م��ن العمر حت��ى الثمالة‪.‬‬ ‫الجدة التي تفيض محبة ومودة‪ ،‬وتلتمع بالذكاء‬

‫وفي‬ ‫«يا عم��ري»؛ جديد المخرج ه��ادي زكاك‪ٌّ ،‬‬ ‫لمس��يرة ه��ذا المخرج الب��ارع‪ ،‬ال��ذي بات من‬ ‫الثابت أنه أحد القالئل القادرين على صنع فيلم‬ ‫غير روائي‪ ،‬محكم ومتقن وقادر على النفاذ إلى‬ ‫جوهر األش��ياء‪ ،‬في تأكيد على تلك السينما التي‬ ‫نريد‪ ،‬س��ينما ال تلهو‪ ،‬وال تعبث‪ ،‬وربما ال تمزح‪،‬‬ ‫حتى لو كان فيها من الطرافة ما يعمر ابتساماتنا‬ ‫رغم آالم الفراق‪ ،‬ومرارة الغياب‪ .‬س��ينما اإلنسان‬ ‫في مواجهه خياراته كما في مواجهة أقداره‪.‬‬

‫«خارج اإلطار»‪ ..‬صورة الفلسطينني بأيديهم‬ ‫س��نوات أمضاها المخرج مهند يعقوبي باحثاً‬ ‫ومنقباً في األرشيف الس��ينمائي الفلسطيني‪.‬‬ ‫ثم��ة م��ن يق��ول لن��ا إنه��ا خمس س��نوات‪،‬‬ ‫ولكن الص��ور التي انتهى إليه��ا الفيلم‪ ،‬تقول‬ ‫إن��ه جه��د كبي��ر‪ ،‬ومنج��ز بدي��ع‪ ،‬ذاك الذي‬ ‫يتآلف بمونتاج فائق‪ ،‬ليرس��م لن��ا وقائع من‬ ‫الس��نوات والخطوات األولى من عمر السينما‬ ‫الفلس��طينية‪ ،‬وليحقق جانباً من رصد الكيفية‬ ‫التي أمكن للس��ينمائيين الفلسطينيين‪ ،‬ومن‬ ‫تعاون معهم‪ ،‬من فعله‪ ،‬في ما يمكن تسميته‬ ‫«التعبير الذاتي»‪.‬‬

‫ع��رب‪ ،‬وم��ن العال��م‪ .‬تق��دّم جي��ل أول من‬ ‫الس��ينمائيين الفلس��طينيين لصناعة أفالمهم‬ ‫في إطار الثورة الفلسطينية المسلحة‪ .‬تعاون‬ ‫معهم س��ينمائيون عرب‪ ،‬وس��ينمائيين وفدوا‬ ‫من أنح��اء العالم‪ ،‬وبات��ت تجاربهم محفورة‬ ‫في ذاكرة يعيد مهن��دي يعقوبي إيقاظها من‬ ‫سبات‪ ،‬واستحضارها من غياب‪.‬‬ ‫قرابة ‪ 16‬فيلماً يأخذ منها يعقوبي مادة‬

‫فيلمه البصرية‪ ،‬فينس��جها‪ ،‬ويعي��د صياغتها‪،‬‬ ‫لينته��ي إلى هذا الفيلم الذي فيه من الذاكرة‬ ‫واأليام التي مضت‪ ،‬تماماً كما فيه من الراهن‬ ‫يتقصى التحوالت التي‬ ‫والحاضر‪ .‬تتابع تاريخي ّ‬ ‫طرأت على الصورة الفلسطينية‪ ،‬كما صنعوها‪،‬‬ ‫مترافقة مع الوقائع غير العادية التي شهدها‬ ‫الفلس��طينيون من��ذ نكبتهم‪ ،‬من ثم‬ ‫نكس��تهم‪ ،‬مرورا ً باجتي��اح وحصار‪،‬‬ ‫قبل أن يشعلوا انتفاضاتهم المتتالية‪.‬‬ ‫الص��ورة عنص��ر‬

‫جوهري من عناصر الهوي��ة‪ ،‬تلك التي يعمل‬ ‫الفلس��طينيون منذ النكبة الكبرى‪ ،‬على إعادة‬ ‫صياغته��ا‪ ،‬وحمايتها من التش��ظي والتدمير‪،‬‬ ‫وم��ن النك��ران واإللغ��اء‪ ،‬وتعزيزه��ا حكاية‬ ‫شفوية‪ ،‬ومسامرات جدات‪ ،‬وصورة سينمائية‪.‬‬

‫م��ع الث��ورة الفلس��طينية‪ ،‬والفيلم‬ ‫يختار اس��مه على‬ ‫«خ��ارج اإلط��ار‬ ‫أو ث��ورة حت��ى‬ ‫النص��ر»‪ ،‬أمس��ك‬ ‫الفلسطينيون قصب‬ ‫المب��ادرة في رس��م‬ ‫صورته��م‪ ،‬بع��د أن‬ ‫كان��ت تل��ك المهمة‬ ‫بين أيدي سينمائيين‬

‫‪ 09‬ديسمرب ‪2016‬‬

‫‪12/9/16 12:54 AM‬‬

‫يف دبي ‪7‬‬

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‫تتنوع ما بني الطويل والقصري‪ ،‬وما بني الروائي وغري الروائي‬ ‫ّ‬

‫السينما اإلماراتية‬ ‫عسل ومطر‪ ...‬وانتظار‬

‫‪ ‬بشار إبراهيم‬

‫م��ا زرعته مس��ابقة «أف�لام من اإلم��ارات» لم‬ ‫يذهب ُس��د ًى‪ .‬األحالم تتحق‪ .‬وما بدا إنها أوهام‬ ‫مسعود أمرالله آل علي‪ ،‬ذات يوم‪ ،‬باتت حقيقة‬ ‫مجس��دة على الشاش��ات الكبي��رة‪ ،‬في صاالت‬ ‫الع��رض الجماهي��ري كم��ا ف��ي المهرجان��ات‪.‬‬ ‫ول��م تع��د المش��اركة الس��ينمائية اإلماراتي��ة‪،‬‬ ‫في مهرج��ان دولي م��ن ط��راز «مهرجان دبي‬ ‫الس��ينمائي الدولي»‪ ،‬تتوقّف عند حدود الفيلم‬ ‫القصير‪ .‬مضى ذاك الزمان عندما كان السينمائي‬ ‫اإلمارات��ي يتهيّب من اإلق��دام على صناعة فيلم‬ ‫طوي��ل‪ ،‬وبات من ال ُمنتظر عام��اً تلو آخر ترقّب‬ ‫المشاركة اإلماراتية‪ ،‬التي ستتن ّوع ما بين الطويل‬ ‫والقصي��ر‪ ،‬وما بين الروائ��ي وغير الروائي‪ ،‬فضالً‬ ‫عن اإلس��هامات الجليلة الت��ي تقدّمها الصناديق‬ ‫والمؤسس��ات اإلماراتية‪ ،‬في مجال دعم صناعة‬ ‫الس��ينما العربية عموماً‪ ،‬تلك اإلس��هامات التي‬ ‫تتجلّى بوجود اس��م اإلم��ارات ُمنتجاً وش��ريكاً‬ ‫ف��ي إنتاج ع��دد غير قليل‪ ،‬من أه�� ّم اإلنتاجات‬ ‫السينمائية العربية‪.‬‬ ‫في ال��دورة الثالثة عش��رة م��ن «مهرجان دبي‬ ‫السينمائي الدولي»‪ ،‬ومع االنتباه لمشاركة األفالم‬ ‫القصي��رة اإلماراتي��ة‪ ،‬مث��ل‪« :‬االختي��ار» إليمان‬ ‫الس��يد‪ ،‬و«حيوان» لنايلة الخاج��ة‪ ،‬و«روبيان»‬ ‫لياسر النيادي‪ ،‬و«كنادير» لعلي بن مطر‪ ،‬و«ليلة‬ ‫في تاكسي» لعائش��ة الزعابي‪ ،‬و«محل بوطير»‪،‬‬ ‫لصق��ر لخريباني النعيمي‪ ،‬تتع ّزز المش��اركة مع‬ ‫باقة م��ن األفالم الطويل��ة‪ ،‬الروائي��ة منها وغير‬ ‫الروائية‪ ،‬فبعد فوزه��ا بـ«جائزة أفضل فيلم غير‬ ‫روائي»‪ ،‬في الدورة الحادية عشرة من «مهرجان‬ ‫دبي الس��ينمائي الدول��ي» (‪ ،)2014‬عن فيلمها‬ ‫«سماء قريبة»‪ ،‬تعود المخرجة نجوم الغانم إلى‬ ‫المنافس��ة‪ ،‬في إطار «المهر اإلماراتي»‪ ،‬بفيلمها‬ ‫غير الروائي الجديد «عسل ومطر وغبار»‪ ،‬الذي‬ ‫العسالين ومربي النحل‬ ‫يرصد جوانب من حياة ّ‬ ‫في جبال الفجيرة‪.‬‬

‫عبر فيلمهما «انتظار»‪ ،‬من أداء مريم س��لطان‪،‬‬ ‫وعادل إبراهيم‪ ،‬ونهى رأف��ت‪ ،‬ومنصور الفيلي‪،‬‬ ‫وفاطمة الطرابلس��ي‪ ،‬وعلي الكياني‪ ،‬وش��ريفة‬ ‫محمد‪ .‬وينض ّم المخرج عبدالله الكعبي بفيلمه‬ ‫«الرجال فقط عند الدفن»‪ ،‬إلى المنافسة‪ ،‬وهو‬ ‫فيل��م روائي طويل من بطولة س��ليمة يعقوب‪،‬‬ ‫هبة صباح‪ ،‬عبد الرضا ناصري‪ .‬كما يُعرض الفيلم‬ ‫غير الروائي «س��بارتا الصغيرة» للمخرج منصور‬ ‫اليبهون��ي الظاه��ري‪ ،‬والفيلم الروائ��ي الطويل‬ ‫«المخت��ارون»‪ ،‬للمخرج عل��ي مصطفى‪ ،‬ومن‬ ‫بطولة‪ :‬علي س��ليمان‪ ،‬وس��امر المصري‪ ،‬وركين‬ ‫س��عد‪ ،‬ومحمود األطرش‪ ،‬وحبيب غلوم‪ ،‬وسامر‬ ‫إسماعيل‪ ،‬وصالح حنون‪.‬‬ ‫وم��ع االنتباه إلى مبادرة فيلم «فالش»‪ ،‬للمخرج‬ ‫حس��ن كياني‪ ،‬باالنتس��اب إلى تقني��ة «الواقع‬ ‫االفتراض��ي» الجدي��دة ف��ي الس��ينما العربية‬ ‫والعالمية‪ ،‬فإن النظرة العام��ة لألفالم اإلماراتية‬ ‫ال ُمشاركة تش��ير إلى هيمنة األسئلة االجتماعية‬ ‫عل��ى مواضيعه��ا‪ ،‬بما فيه��ا من قضاي��ا راهنة‬ ‫ومل ّحة‪ ،‬س��واء على مس��توى الفرد أم المجتمع‪،‬‬ ‫تماس مع السياس��ي والوطن��ي‪ ،‬ما يؤكد أن‬ ‫في ّ‬ ‫الس��ينما ال تتط ّور فقط على الصعيد الكمي‪ ،‬بل‬ ‫أيضاً على مستوى المضامين والموضوعات‪.‬‬ ‫الس��ينما اإلماراتية التي س��تضيئ على الشاشة‪،‬‬ ‫تض�� ّم أيض��اً تل��ك المش��روعات المقبلة كما‬ ‫في «س��الم» المش��روع الس��ينمائي الجديد‬ ‫للمخرج��ة نج��وم الغانم‪ ،‬و«مطلع ش��مس»‪،‬‬ ‫للمخرج عبدالله حس��ن أحمد‪ ،‬المتنافس��ين‬ ‫عل��ى «جائ��زة آي دبليو س��ي للمخرجين‬ ‫الخليجيي��ن»‪ ،‬والمنتظ��ر أن يش��كل كل‬ ‫منهما نقلة نوعية‪.‬‬

‫ويش��ارك المخرج أحم��د زين بفيلم��ه الروائي‬ ‫الطويل الجديد «ليزا»‪ ،‬في عرضه العالمي األول‪،‬‬ ‫وه��و من بطولة‪ :‬أيمن خديم‪ ،‬وناصر الظنحاني‪،‬‬ ‫وعلي الش��حي‪ ،‬ولورا‪ .‬كما يحضر المخرج هاني‬ ‫الش��يباني بالش��راكة م��ع المخرج خال��د علي‪،‬‬ ‫‪6‬‬ ‫ ‬

‫‪12/9/16 12:54 AM‬‬

‫يف دبي ‪ 09‬ديسمرب ‪2016‬‬

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‫سينما «الواقع االفرتاضي»‬ ‫بادرة غري مسبوقة عربي ًا‬

‫‪ُ ‬عال الشيخ‬

‫تجرب��ة مختلف��ة تس��تحق المجازف��ة‪ ،‬اس��تعد‬ ‫لخوضها مع مشاهدة سينما «الواقع االفتراضي»‪،‬‬ ‫والمقام��ة في أروقة «مهرجان دبي الس��ينمائي‬ ‫الدول��ي»‪ ،‬ف��ي دورته الـ‪ ،13‬والت��ي تتض ّمن ‪10‬‬ ‫أف�لام‪ 5 ،‬منها في عرض عالمي أول‪ ،‬حيث بدأت‬ ‫العروض‪ ،‬عند الس��اعة ‪ 11‬صباح أمس الخميس‪،‬‬ ‫على مدرج مدينة جميرا‪ .‬وتس��تمر يومياً‪ ،‬حيث‬ ‫سيتوفر قرابة ‪ 20‬جهازا ً للمشاهدة‪ ،‬بالتعاون مع‬ ‫«دو»‪ ،‬وبدعم من «سامسونغ»‪.‬‬ ‫المجازف��ة ف��ي التجرب��ة الجديدة هنا ليس��ت‬ ‫مرتبطة بخطر قادم‪ ،‬بل بنوع من الجمال‪ ،‬كوننا‬ ‫نعيش أياماً س��ينمائية خالص��ة‪ ،‬والمرجو دائما‬

‫أن تقدم وتس��عى الس��ينما للجمال واالختالف‪.‬‬ ‫أنت س��تعيش‪ ،‬بم��ا ال يتج��اوز ‪ 20‬دقيقة حالة‬ ‫انفرادية‪ ،‬تجمعك مع مشهد متكامل‪ ،‬وما عليك‬ ‫اال أن تقوم بصناعة تلك المشاهد حسب رؤيتك‬ ‫الخاصة‪.‬‬ ‫في هذه التجربة س��تُمنح الفرصة لك ألن تكون‬ ‫مكان المخرج‪ ،‬وتصنع فيلمك الخاص‪ ،‬بالطريقة‬ ‫التي تريد‪ ،‬بمجرد أن ترت��دي النظارات الخاصة‬ ‫للمشاهدة‪ ،‬س��تدخل عالماً مصورا ً بشكل كامل‬ ‫وبانورام��ي‪ ،‬يظه��ر فيه كل التفاصي��ل الدقيقة‪،‬‬ ‫حت��ى لو كانت نحلة موجودة على غصن ما في‬ ‫غابة واس��عة‪ ،‬ولك كل الحرية أن تقرب اللقطة‬ ‫وتبعده��ا‪ ،‬وتختار دم��ج اللقطات م��ع بعضها‬ ‫البعض‪ .‬التيه في البداية س��يكون حليفك‪ ،‬ومن‬

‫الممكن أن تُصاب بوجع الرأس من هول التقنية‬ ‫المستخدمة‪ ،‬لكن ال ش��ك أنك ستخرج من تلك‬ ‫التجربة‪ ،‬وأنت تعتقد أنك صانع الفيلم‪.‬‬ ‫هذا النوع من المش��اهدة عيب��ه الوحيد‪ ،‬ومن‬ ‫الممك��ن ألن��ه حدي��ث‪ ،‬أنك ل��ن تركّ��ز بقصة‬ ‫الفيل��م والس��يناريو واألص��وات‪ ،‬ق��در تركيزك‬ ‫على المش��اهد المكانية‪ ،‬والوج��وه الموجودة‪،‬‬ ‫والتفاصي��ل التي عالق��ة باكتمال المش��هد من‬ ‫الناحية البصرية فقط‪ ،‬فأنت س��تكون مش��غوالً‬ ‫بتجربة صناعة لقطات��ك الخاصة‪ ،‬ومن الممكن‬ ‫أن تحاول التجربة مرة ثانية‪ ،‬لتركز بباقي عناصر‬ ‫اكتمال الفيلم نفسه‪.‬‬ ‫إنها ب��ادرة غير مس��بوقة س��ينمائياً عربياً‪ ،‬كما‬

‫أعتق��د‪ .‬وأظن أنه��ا س��تغدو ركناً أساس��ياً في‬ ‫المهرجانات السينمائية العربية‪ ،‬خاصة مع إقبال‬ ‫عدد م��ن المخرجين العرب عل��ى إنجاز أفالمه‬ ‫بهذه التقنية‪ .‬المخ��رج العراقي اإليطالي حيدر‬ ‫رش��يد‪ ،‬وفيلمه «ال ح��دود»‪ ،‬والمخرج اإلماراتي‬ ‫حسن كياني‪ ،‬وفيلمه «فالش»‪.‬‬ ‫وهنا من البديهي أن نطرح السؤال‪ ،‬هل سيكون‬ ‫ش��كل الس��ينما القادم بش��كل س��ينما «الواقع‬ ‫االفتراض��ي»؟ هل س��يتحول ش��كل المش��اهد‬ ‫يلف ويحرك رأس��ه في كل‬ ‫ال��ى أش��به بروبوت ّ‬ ‫االتجاهات‪ ،‬ويبتعد عن الثبات في كرس��يه؟ هل‬ ‫هذه هي السينما المرجوة التي تحاول أن تكون‬ ‫ج��زءا ً من ثقافة كل ش��خص يعي��ش على هذه‬ ‫األرض؟ وماذا سيكون دور المخرج في كل هذا؟‬

‫الفنانون السوريون‬ ‫بطوالت يف أفالم شقيقة‬ ‫ال يغي��ب الفنان��ون الس��وريون عن شاش��ات‬ ‫«مهرجان دبي الس��ينمائي الدولي»‪ ،‬وإن غابت‬ ‫األف�لام الس��ورية ذاتها‪ ،‬فيحضر الفن��ان الكبير‬ ‫بسام كوس��ا ونادين وجابر جوخدار في الفيلم‬ ‫اللبناني «محبس»‪ ،‬إخراج صوفي بطرس‪.‬‬ ‫حكاية ظريف��ة وطريفة عن أل��م كبير‪ ،‬وجرح‬ ‫عمي��ق‪ ،‬بش��أن العالقة الس��ورية اللبنانية على‬ ‫مستوى الناس ومش��اعرهم وواقعهم بعيداً عن‬ ‫ش��عار «س��وا ربينا»‪ ،‬ومقولة «شعب واحد في‬ ‫بلدين»‪.‬‬ ‫وكما فع��ل المخرج اإلماراتي علي مصطفى في‬ ‫فيلمه الس��ابق (م��ن األلف إلى الي��اء)‪ ،‬يعمد‬ ‫ف��ي فيلمه الجدي��د «المختارون»‪ ،‬لالس��تعانة‬ ‫بنج��وم عرب من غي��ر بلد‪ ،‬ليكون الس��امران؛‬

‫سامر إس��ماعيل‪ ،‬وس��امر المصري‪ ،‬من النجوم‬ ‫الس��وريين المش��اركين في بطولة ه��ذا الفيلم‬ ‫المنتظر‪ ،‬الذي سنش��اهده مساء اليوم الجمعة‬ ‫في عرضه األول في الش��رق األوس��ط وشمال‬ ‫أفريقيا‪ ،‬قبل أن يجد طريقه إلى صاالت العرض‬ ‫الجماهي��ري‪ ،‬اإلماراتي��ة والخليجية على األقل‪،‬‬ ‫قريباً‪.‬‬ ‫وش��خصياً أبق��ى أكثر مي�لاً إلى تل��ك البطولة‬ ‫المهزوم��ة في الواق��ع‪ ،‬التي يقوم بها ش��باب‬ ‫س��وريون‪ ،‬في الفيل��م غير الروائي «اليابس��ة»‬ ‫(تي��را فيرما)‪ ،‬للمغربي ل��وران أيت بنعال‪ ،‬الذي‬ ‫تدور أحداثه ووقائعه في ميناء جنوب فرنسا‪.‬‬ ‫الس��وريون‪ ...‬الجئون ش��رعيون‪ ...‬أم مهاجرون‬ ‫غير شرعيين‪ ...‬لم تعد تلك المسألة‪.‬‬

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‫عبداهلل حسن أحمد‪..‬‬ ‫يعزز «مطلع شمس» بجائزة «‪»IWC‬‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫بع��د ف��وزه‪ ،‬الع��ام الماضي‪ ،‬ف��ي نهاية‬ ‫ال��دورة ال��ـ‪ 12‬م��ن «مهرج��ان دب��ي‬ ‫الس��ينمائي الدول��ي»‪ ،‬بجائ��زة «وزارة‬ ‫الداخلي��ة ألفض��ل س��يناريو مجتمعي»‪،‬‬ ‫يعود المخرج عبدالله حسن أحمد‪ ،‬مرة‬ ‫أخ��رى‪ ،‬إلى منص��ة التتوي��ج‪ ،‬ليفوز في‬ ‫ثاني أيام الدورة الـ‪ 13‬من «مهرجان دبي‬ ‫الس��ينمائي الدولي»‪ ،‬هذا العام‪ ،‬بجائزة‬ ‫«آي دبليو س��ي ش��افهاوزن للمخرجين‬ ‫الخليجيين»‪ ،‬مما يجعل مش��روع فيلمه‬ ‫الجدي��د «مطلع ش��مس»‪ ،‬ف��ي موقف‬ ‫أكث��ر اقتراباً للتنفيذ‪ ،‬ف��ي تعزيز إنتاجي‬ ‫مطل��وب‪ ،‬وف��ي تحقق مرتق��ب لتوقيع‬ ‫عبدالله على فيلمه الروائي الطويل‪.‬‬ ‫عبدالله حسن أحمد‪ ،‬أحد أبرز المخرجين‬ ‫اإلماراتيي��ن‪ ،‬من مؤسس��ي صناع��ة الفيلم‬ ‫ف��ي اإلم��ارات‪ ،‬لدي��ه ‪ 30‬فيلم��اً قصي��را ً‪،‬‬ ‫منتجاً ومخرج��اً‪ .‬حصلت أعماله على عدد‬ ‫من الجوائ��ز المحلي��ة والدولية‪ .‬وش��ارك‬ ‫في مهرجان��ات دولية عدة‪ ،‬منھ��ا‪ :‬برلين‪،‬‬ ‫ولوكارن��و‪ ،‬وطوكي��و‪ ،‬وأبوظب��ي‪ ،‬ودب��ي‪...‬‬ ‫يتحدّث عن مشروع فيلمه «مطلع شمس»‪،‬‬ ‫فيقول‪« :‬في فيلمي هذا اتجه نحو الواقعية‬ ‫والحكاية االجتماعية المحلية‪ ،‬أعرضها من‬ ‫ظل‬ ‫خالل عائله صغي��رة‪ ،‬تعيش يومها في ّ‬ ‫تشييع ش��هداء الوطن‪ ،‬في عمل سينمائي‪،‬‬ ‫يتّجه إلى الطرح اإلنساني‪ ،‬وكذلك التوثيق‬ ‫للمرحلة الحاضرة‪ ،‬بتفاصيلها كلها»‪.‬‬ ‫ف��ي «مطلع ش��مس»‪ ،‬نقرأ‪ :‬ل��م يكن يوماً‬ ‫ذاك ال��ذي ضاق به ص��در بوعبود (األب)‪،‬‬

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‫بل عمرا ً طويالً ثقيالً‪ .‬بدا مثل صباح صيفي‬ ‫حار آخر‪ ،‬في أوأخر سبتمبر‪ ،‬في بيت األب‬ ‫الواقع تحت خاصره الجبل‪ ،‬لكن مع هجمة‬ ‫النور األولى‪ ،‬انتشر مع خيوط الشمس خبر‬ ‫غير س��ار‪ ،‬عبر التلفزي��ون‪ ،‬فالقنوات كلها‬ ‫تبثّ أخبارا ً عن س��قوط شهداء في الحرب‬ ‫البعيدة‪ ،‬ع��دد كبير من أبنائنا ماتوا هناك‪،‬‬ ‫ليبلع الوجوم كل ش��يء‪ .‬يبقى األب منزوياً‬ ‫في غرفته جالس��اً أمام الشاشة‪ ،‬يتابع أرقام‬ ‫الش��هداء وهي تتزايد من ثانية إلى أخرى‪.‬‬ ‫أرقام فقط‪ ،‬ال تفاصيل‪ ،‬وال صور‪ ،‬وال أسماء‪،‬‬ ‫يكف هذا الع ّد عن التوقف‪ .‬وقبل‬ ‫دون أن ّ‬ ‫أن يس��تفيق م��ن الصدمة‪ ،‬ثم��ة خبر آخر‬ ‫يأتيه من الح��رب البعيدة‪ ،‬يباغته كصفعة‪،‬‬ ‫لكن��ه يفضل أن يبقيه س��را ً‪ ،‬خصوصاً على‬ ‫زوجته الحامل‪ ،‬وهي على شفا طلق وشيك‪.‬‬ ‫يبقى من الجدير ذكر أن ش��ركة «فرادیس‬ ‫لإلنت��اج الفن��ي»‪ ،‬المنتج��ة له��ذا الفيلم‪،‬‬ ‫تأسست‬ ‫تُعنى باإلنتاج السينمائي والفني‪ّ ،‬‬ ‫بشكل ربحي منذ سنة ‪ ،2004‬أنتجت ا ٔكثر‬ ‫من ‪ 30‬فيلماً قصيرا ً إماراتياً‪ .‬س��اهمت في‬ ‫اإلنتاج الس��ينمائي في دولة اإلمارات‪ ،‬من‬ ‫خالل ك��وادر س��ينمائية محلية‪ ،‬ش��اركت‬ ‫ف��ي العدي��د م��ن المهرجان��ات المحلية‬ ‫والدولية‪ ،‬وحققت الكثير من الجوائز على‬ ‫المس��توى الداخل��ي والخارجي‪ ،‬لتس��اهم‬ ‫ف��ي االرتقاء بصناعة الس��ينما‪ ،‬وفي نش��ر‬ ‫الوعي والثقافة السينمائية‪ ،‬وتعمل بشكل‬ ‫ربحي في إنتاج اإلعالنات وأفالم الش��ركات‬ ‫وجميع الفيديوهات الدرامية وغير الروائية‬ ‫وتلفزيونية والغنائية بشكل احترافي‪.‬‬

‫يف دبي ‪ 09‬ديسمرب ‪2016‬‬

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‫الث‬ ‫اين‬

2016 ‫ ديسمرب‬09 ‫اجلمعة‬

‫وم‬ ‫الي‬

‫بالعـــربية‬

‫فـي مهـرجـــان دبــــي السـينـمائي الـدويل‬ www.ScreenDaily.com Editorial lizshackleton@gmail.com

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12/9/16 12:54 AM

‫ال‬

‫يو‬ Screen Issue 2.indd 2

12/9/16 12:53 AM

‫الث‬ ‫اين‬

2016 ‫ ديسمرب‬09 ‫اجلمعة‬

‫وم‬ ‫الي‬

‫بالعـــربية‬

‫فـي مهـرجـــان دبــــي السـينـمائي الـدويل‬ www.ScreenDaily.com Editorial lizshackleton@gmail.com

Screen Issue 2.indd 1

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12/9/16 12:53 AM