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Arab Film Festival 2010
The Arab Film Festival will be held from 1-31 July, 2010. This festival provides a platform for emerging, developing and established Arab filmmakers to show their screen-based work to broad audiences. “Arab filmmakers are making it without Hollywood – they are making films under occupation, in cities of chaos, with limited funds and sometimes no budget at all.
We select the best to screen this year to Australian audiences – stories made by Arabs about Arabs – authentic stories – an alternative perspective.” Mouna Zaylah – Festival Co-Director
The Festival has become an internationally recognised event attracting film entries from all over the world. Films have been selected from the Middle East, United States, Europe and Australia. We are excited about the quality of films available for the Festival this year – action-packed drama, documentary’s, thrillers and a collection of experimental and animated shorts. This year we will also launch a collection of home-made films screened to a live musical score by talented local Oud player Mohamed Youssef.
“We are jam-packed with diverse Arab stories, from Morocco via Beirut, on the way through Kuwait, passing through Palestine and then across the Pacific to Australia. We bring you a collection of films – shorts, features and contemporary animations to share the stories and experiences of Arab people.” Fadia Abboud, Festival Co-Director
The festival will screen in five locations across the country launching from the centre of Sydney and from its home at Riverside Theatres in Parramatta and then on to Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane.
Following are some highlights of the festival...
City of Life
Three fascinating characters live in modern Dubai – a privileged young Arab man at odds with his cultural identity, a disillusioned Indian taxi driver who looks like a famous Bollywood star and a former Romanian ballet dancer searching for love and companionship. These people are about to collide for better or for worse in a city where ambition, growth and opportunity are encouraged and dreams can still be realized.
True to Dubai’s cosmopolitan makeup, the cast includes Romanian actress Alexandra Maria Lara, Northern Indian actor Sonu Sood, UAE nationals Saoud Al Ka’abi and Habib Ghuloom, British-based Jason Flemyng, Natalie Dormer and Susan George, Canadian-Iraqi rapper The Narcicyst, Egyptian-American comic Ahmed Ahmed, and Mumbai-born Jaaved Jaaferi.
City of Life is an urban drama that tracks the various intersections of a multiethnic cast, examining how random interactions and their consequences can irrevocably impact another’s life. As the name suggests, City of Life’s humane kaleidoscope of converging experiences introduces Dubai as a living pulsating character. City of Life ultimately reveals how unexpected tragedy and loss can lead to hope and profound transformation as it explores and exposes the complex network that exists in an emerging multicultural society’s race, ethnicity and class divides.
Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story
A sharp observation of Egyptian society, Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story uses the classic Arabian Nights framework of a story within a story. Hebba Younis (Mona Zakki), is a contemporary, fiercely independent talk-show host. Married to Karim Hassan (Hassan El Raddad), a needy and opportunistic newspaper editor for a government-owned daily, Hebba is asked to forfeit the success of her career for the professional ambitions of her husband. In the eyes of government officials, before Karimmay ascend his own political and professional ladder, he must persuade his wife to soften the blazingly critical tone she broadcasts across the nation.
Afraid of how yet another divorce may affect her celebrity among the Cairo public, Hebba finally complies, ultimately privileging the success of her marriage over her own personal and professional aims. But by shifting from hard politics to softer ‘women’s stories’, she discovers lives and struggles that may be even more damaging to reveal.
12 Angry Lebanese
A theatre director specialising in working with disadvantaged and traumatised people, Zeina Daccache struggled to set up Lebanon’s first prison-based drama project in the country’s notorious Roumieh Prison. For 15 months, 45 inmates, some completely illiterate, found themselves working together to present an adaptation of the famous stage play 12 Angry Men, here renamed 12 Angry Lebanese.
Through their new-found creative outlet, we witness the prisoners coalesce into a slick, professional ensemble. Inspiring and honest, this account of the prisoners’ journey demonstrates the power of art therapy and the positive effect on some of the most ostracised individuals in society.
2010 Arab Film Festival
Dates and Venues:
Sydney 01-04/07/10 Parramatta Riverside Theater
Melbourne 09-11/07/10 Cinema Nova Carlton
Canberra 15-18/07/10 ARC Cinema
Adelaide 24-25/07/10 Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas
Brisbane 30-31/07/10 Dendy Portside
Official Site: www.arabfilmfestival.com.au
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