‘Culture and arts pillars of modern state’
Kuwaiti playwright kicks off world premiere of ‘Petrol Station’
KUWAIT CITY, March 25, (KUNA): Kuwait First Film Festival kicked off Friday amid distinguished atmospheres including shows of art and cinema.
The shows outline the leading cinema march of the State of Kuwait that was launched in the beginning of the last century.
Addressing the festival, Secretary General of National Center for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL) Ali Al-Yoha said in a speech on behalf of Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah that culture and arts are pillars of the modern state.
Al-Yoha added that art industry has evolved in the State of Kuwait, and become a mirror of progress and development, referring to keenness of many countries on organizing festivals to brief their nations on latest development in cinema industry.
Kuwait has made great strides in cultural fields, and been existing on area of cinema for 40 years, he said.
Meanwhile, Shaker Abul, head of festival, said the event would not be based only in showcasing cinema works of directors but it will help participants share expertise and ideas.
The festival will hold several lectures, seminars and workshops which feature some experts in this industry, he noted. It invited some guests from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Lebanon, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Canada, Germany, Malta and Czech Republic, he revealed.
The event is held under the auspices of Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah, who is also Acting Information Minister and Chairman of NCCAL.
The pioneers of filmmaking, who have played outstanding roles on artistic arenas in Kuwait and all over the world, were honored during inaugurating the event in Dasma Theater.
Directors Khaled Al-Nasrallah, Hashem Mohammad, Abdullah Al-Mekhyal and others were honored during the event which runs until March 28 at the National Library of Kuwait.
Meanwhile, Kuwaiti playwright Sulayman Al-Bassam returns to the Kennedy Center stage in Washington from March
24 to 27 for the world premiere of the first work to his newest trilogy, “Petrol Station”. The story takes place at a remote petrol station on the border of an unnamed country in the Gulf.
“It’s a modern dystopian story which addresses the problems of human identity, borders, loyalty, betrayal, love, ambition and the struggle for power in a civil wartorn country where the currency of exchange is smuggled petrol and fleeing refugees,” Al-Bassam told KUNA.
“Petrol Station is the tragic backdrop to a familial standoff where the crimes and secrets of one generation make violent claims on the lives of the next,” he added.
The cast consists of only American actors who portray widely diverse characters ranging from migrant workers to greedy warlords.
“With various travel bans being imposed by the US, I was faced with the fact that my usual troupe of pan-Arab actors probably couldn’t perform in the United
States at this time,” Al-Bassam explained. “So we are using an all-American cast to present a cross-cultural drama.” Al-Bassam’s time as an artist in residence at New York University is what he says allowed him to develop an “American voice to tell an Arab story” in which he deliberately choose to write the story in English.
“Choices around casting; African American and Spanish speakers, and the way the story might carry echoes of other stories
and moments from American or Western politics will resonate with US audiences where it is no longer ‘happening somewhere else’ but on their own doorstep,” he said.
Al-Bassam was inspired to write Petrol Station after finding interest in the “periodic violence of the human experience. “I first started writing it in 2003 at the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq where scenes reminded me of the burning oil fields in Kuwait from the withdrawing Iraqi army twelve years earlier,” he said.
“Petrol Station is a shift in the form of spatial and temporal space where events in the play intersect with current and modern day events.” Al-Bassam’s previous work includes his five part Arab Shakespeare Trilogy in which the second work, Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, was also presented at the Kennedy Center.
He said he hopes to offer performances of Petrol Station to Kuwaiti and Arab audiences soon.