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Ambitious Dubai film festival shows growing pains as 3rd edition kicks off |
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12/13/2006 9:12:48 AM |
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The third edition of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) opened on Sunday evening with all the incongruous glitz and glamor this well-endowed festival can offer. The rain - itself incongruous in this climate, at least in the quantities seen this week - also held off.
The film that awaited those who sashayed down the red carpet was Emilio Estevez' "Bobby," which chronicles the tragic end of Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign.
Laurence Fishburne, who is a member of the film's stellar cast, was among the celebrities who turned up for the opener, as was Oliver Stone, whose "World Trade Center" is being screened as part of a salute to the American director. Egyptian stars Mahmoud Abdul-Aziz, Salah al-Saadani and Leila Alawi and several Bollywood celebrities were also on hand, resplendent.
If anything, the opening night was rather more glamorous than it had been in past years, and a minor-key controversy ignited when accredited journalists turning up to cover the event found themselves frozen out. Even respectably dressed ticket-holders were denied entry because they, like their counterparts in the press corps, hadn't been informed the event was a formal, black-tie affair.
"Bobby" marks a bit of a change from the opening film of DIFF 2005, "Paradise Now." Hany Abu Assad's story about a pair of Palestinian suicide bombers had been thought an odd choice then because of its controversial content, though all agreed having an Arab film open the DIFF was appropriate.
This year, many registered similar confusion about "Bobby," though some organizers argue the film is equally engaged since it harkens back to a time when US foreign policy was aggressive but optimistic, unlike today.
The "Arabian Nights" gala on Monday night featured the world premiere of "Justified Cheating" by Egyptian director Khaled Youssef. A murder mystery in the vein of "Rashomon," this multi-faceted tale follows several different readings of why a young bourgeois Egyptian murders his brother and wife after finding them in bed together.
That the screening went ahead on schedule was a fine bit of organizational sleight-of-hand. The press screening and news conference two days earlier had been canceled, apparently because the film print arrived from Egypt without subtitles - a blunder for an upwardly mobile international festival like DIFF.
There have been a few other minor glitches this year, which may be a reflection of changes made to the festival's organization and program - all of which amount to a mean expansion.
The core of DIFF's roster of 115 movies from 47 countries continues to reside in a bushel of noncompetitive sections - "Arabian Nights" (which has absorbed part of the former "Arabian Shorts" and "New to Dubai" sections, the latter of which was devoted to first-time features), "Cafe Europe," "Cinema from the Subcontinent" (meaning India), "Contemporary World Cinema," "Destination Documentary," "Emerging Emiratis," "In Honor of Africa," "Insights from Asia" and "Operation Cultural Bridge" - a multi-genre, cultural-dialogue-themed section and something of a personal initiative on the part of DIFF director Neil Stephenson.
DIFF 2006 has added two more noncompetitive sections, "Cinema for Children," put together by Lebanese-German filmmaker Myrna Maakaron, and "Mosaic," a late addition that groups politically engaged shorts from within and outside the region.
The big news for 2006, of course, is the Muhr Awards for Excellence in Arab Cinema, a three-part competition for Arabic-language "narrative features," documentaries and short films - all overseen by Lebanese film critic Mohammed Redha, the director of the competition.
"The competition is something we've wanted to do since the beginning and this year we decided to go for it," Stephenson said Monday evening. "And we knew we'd start with an Arabic-language competition. That, along with the 'Cultural Bridge,' is what we're all about."
Dubai film culture is still in its infancy, of course. "Emerging Emiratis," for example, consists of just six shorts. Skeptics might question the value of a prize from this fast-growing instant city.
DIFF's intentions seem honorable, however, and organizers have assembled a respected team of 10 international cineastes to judge the competitions. Their number includes Tunisian producer-director Ridha Behi, Moroccan directors Ismael Ferroukhi and Mohamed Asli, Lebanese director-producer-critic Mohamed Soueid and Egyptian film star Leila Alawi.
Another reason for Arab filmmakers to take the Muhr Awards seriously, of course, is the festival's solvency. DIFF intends to award $325,000 in prize money this year, and the winner for best film will walk away with $50,000.
"$50,000," one Palestinian filmmaker remarked. "That's more than a lot of film budgets."
Finally, DIFF has added a number of film-industry panels and roundtables this year, featuring celebrities and veterans of the regional and international cinema. Along with the highly successful Qubba Lounge - complementary happy hours where directors, producers and journalists can mix and exchange contacts in an informal setting - these panels provide a soft infrastructure in preparation for DIFF's plans for an eventual cinemart.
"Justified Cheating" is the only world premiere this year and it's hardly a surprise. DIFF is a thee-year-old, end-of-the-year festival and for filmmakers to forego premiering at the more established, early- and mid-season festivals, it will need to acquire a stature that only years and a proven track record can provide.
That aside, there is no shortage of seeable films at DIFF 2006, many that are new to the Gulf and the wider Middle East. This is true of all the gala screenings - though Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's "Babel," labeled a "Middle East premiere" in the program, might be regarded as a bit of cheek, since it screened at the Marrakech International Film Festival last week.
Most significant for Gulf cinema-goers, perhaps, is the opportunity to be exposed to quality Arab-language cinema which - given the distribution prejudices and eccentricities in the region - remains a scandalous rarity.
In this, the Muhr Awards will play a significant role. The competition features include work from Morocco - Faouzi Bensaidi's "WWW: What a Wonderful World," which made its mark at both the Venice and Marrakech film festivals - to Bahrain - "A Bahraini Tale," from veteran filmmaker Bassam al-Thawwadi.
Between these two geographical extremes is a range of cinematic sensibilities, from the fantastical - Moroccan director Hakim Belabbes' "Why Oh Sea?" - to historical drama - Franco-Algerian director Rachid Boucharib's much-vaunted "Indigenes" - to melodrama - Salma Baccar's "Flower of Oblivion."
The competition includes sweet romantic comedy - "Falafel," by Lebanon's Michel Kammoun - and sexually explicit violence - Jilani Saadi's "Tenderness of the Wolf." It varies from films embedded in their local environment - "Barakat!" by Algeria's Djamila Sahraoui and "Cut and Paste" by Egypt's Hala Khalil (of "The Best of Times" fame) - to films that explore universal cinematic themes, such as "The Last Man," by Lebanon's Ghassan Salhab.
It will be interesting indeed to see which variation on a theme of cinematic vision DIFF's judges will choose to reward. Their choice will do much to stamp an identity on this shiny new festival. |
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