FILM FESTIVAL OFFERS VIEWS OF ARAB WORLD
Powerful political dramas, a whimsical animated film, a homemade documentary-short about the late Omar Sharif and a night welcoming Calgarian’s Syrian refugees are just a few of the eclectic offerings this year at Arab Nights 2016.
The festival, which is held at the Festival Hall, runs through Sunday and offer a wide variety of films that organizers hope will help broaden views dispel myths about the Arab world.
“There is much more that unfolds there than what you see in the news,” says Moness Rizkalla, executive director of the Calgary Arab Art and Culture Society, which organizes the four-year-old festival. “The whole objective of the festival is the shed light on the day-to-day humanity, day-to-day love, day-today humour in the Arab world.”
Friday features Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, an animated film with an all-star voice cast (Liam Neeson, Salma Hayek) and a Calgary connection. Calgary’s Colin Curwen, who heads local production company New Machine Studios, served as animation producer for the film and will be on hand for the screening.
It will be followed by the comedyadventure, From A to B, a road movie from the United Arab Emirates about three friends on a trip from Abu Dhabi to Beirut.
Saturday will focus on Egyptian cinema, including screenings of the documentary short Nefertiti’s Daughters about the role women street artists played during the
Egyptian uprising, and the feature film Sukkar Mor, a romantic drama. Intriguingly, that evening will also feature a short homemade tribute to Sharif, exploring the Egyptian actor’s contributions to mainstream films (Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Funny Girl) and his early years in Arab cinema.
“I think an effective survey doesn’t exist that bridges both what he did in Arabic and in the West,” Rizkalla says. “He was involved in a couple of high-profile things in the West and people tend to focus on that. But you can find pieces, on YouTube and the like, that surveys what he did and interviews with him in Arabic. We brought the two together.”
On Sunday, Arab Nights will welcome Syrian newcomers for a night that will include a Syrian artisan bazaar and the screenings of films such as On the Bride’s Side, an Italian documentary about a group of Syrians who enter Europe by pretending to be part of a wedding party, and Atlantic, a 2014 adventure-drama about a Moroccan fisherman who windsurfs to Europe.
“We’re offering various levels of balance — geographically, topics, genres and even from within one country’s cinema from year to year,” Rizkalla says.