SEVEN FILMS TO SEE THIS WEEK

Babylon Sunday, Sundance Channel, 10pm

Italian-British director Franco Rossi became something of a diarist for disenfranchised, black British working-class youth, in the recession-hit late-1970s and early 1980s, and Babylon, released in 1980, is perhaps his finest work of the era. The film stars Aswad’s Brinsley Forde as a young, soon-to-be-unemployed, garage mechanic who faces poverty, lack of opportunities and racism on the streets, in the workplace, and from a brutal police force. He finds his temporary escape in the burgeoning South London sound system scene of the era.

The Insult Monday, OSN Box Office 1, streaming on demand

Ziad Doueiri’s 2017 drama was the first Lebanese nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and although it didn’t win, it put Lebanese cinema under the spotlight like never before. The film follows the story of how a minor incident between a Palestinian refugee and a Lebanese Christian spirals into a trail of assaults, court cases, political furores and more, and exposes the deep rifts that still run through Lebanese society after decades of civil war, conflict with its neighbours, influxes of refugees, and religious division.

Legends of the Fall Tuesday, Paramount Movie Channel, 10pm

Edward Zwick’s historical drama follows the father and three brothers of the Ludlow family from the early years of the 20th century through to the 1960s. The story begins with Anthony Hopkins’ Col William Ludlow moving his family to a remote ranch in Montana, having grown tired of the US Army’s abuse of Native Americans, and continues through six decades of family drama, two world wars, prohibition and more. The film won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, and is also one of very few to feature dialogue in the Cornish language, as the Ludlow family are Cornish immigrants to the United States.

The Breadwinner Wednesday, OSN Movies 1st, 10.40am

This Angelina Jolie-produced animation follows the story of Parvana, a 12-year-old Afghan girl who is forced to disguise herself as a boy and find work to support her family when her former teacher father is unjustly imprisoned by the Taliban. Faced with a life of hard labour, feeding her family, avoiding discovery by the Taliban, and trying to free her father from prison, Parvana finds herself growing up very quickly. It’s a surprisingly bleak film for animated fare, and definitely not one for the kids, but it tells a story that was all too common in a country not so far from here.

Maps to the Stars Thursday, Star Movies 1.30pm

Compared to the likes of Videodrome and Crash, David Cronenberg is in positively mild-mannered form in this all-star satire, which, although lacking in the body horror and brutality of many of Cronenberg’s films, still takes a vicious bite out of the self-obsessed nature of the Hollywood bubble. An all-star cast including Julianne Moore, John Cusack and Robert Pattinson excel in roles that essentially require them to mercilessly parody their real-life selves, while Carrie Fisher turns up in a cameo to quite literally perform the same task.

Maleficent Friday, OSN Disney Movies 7pm

Robert Stromberg’s dark fairy tale puts Angelina Jolie in the lead role in this retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, from the perspective of the titular villain. Jolie’s performance as she transforms from flittering, winged fairy to malevolent, horned beast, is a high point, as are the special effects and costumes, which picked up an Oscar. Audiences absolutely loved the movie. Despite mixed reviews and critical predictions that a “dark fairy tale” would only appeal to a select group of Tim Burton fans, the tickets kept on selling, and Maleficent became Jolie’s highest-grossing film, taking more than $700 million (Dh2.5 billion) at the global box office.

Amreeka Saturday, Sundance Channel, 1.35pm

Cherien Dabis’s debut feature premiered at Sundance in 2009, where it was promptly picked up by National Geographic Entertainment for theatrical and home distribution. The film has gone on to become the highest-grossing Arab film to date at the North American box office, and took more than $2m globally. Amreeka tells the story of a Palestinian single mother who, after years of harassment and checkpoints while trying to earn a living for her and her son, is thrilled to win a Green Card to work in the US. Arriving in America days after the invasion of Iraq, and with the memory of 9/11 still fresh, she quickly learns that the promised land may not be all she’s been promised.