São Paulo – The Arab World Film Festival will take place online from August 28 to September 21 this year amid the coronavirus pandemic. The event will bring four premieres to Brazil, plus a selection of 12 motion pictures featured in the event over the last 15 years. Also featured will be four online meetings with directors and guests.
This first-ever online iteration will celebrate the diversity of cinema in Arab countries and solidarity among peoples. The Festival at Home is hosted by the Institute of Arab Culture (Icarabe), featuring SESC São Paulo as a co-host, and sponsored by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC), with support from Instituto do Sono and the Federation of Muslim Associations in Brazil (Fambras).
The movies will be available on the Icarabe website from August 28 to September 13. Registration will be available free of charge from August 21. Four films will be viewable on the SESC website on Mondays from August 31 to September 21.
The festival opens at 6 pm on August 28, in an online event featuring representatives from Icarabe, the ABCC and SESC São Paulo. Next up, documentary film Gaza (100 min, Ireland and Palestine, 2019, pictured at the top of this page) will have its premiere in Brazil. directed by Garry Keane and Andrew McConnell, the film reveals a world of eloquent, resilient Gazans who try to lead relevant lives amid the rubble of an everlasting conflict.
“These fifteen years of partnership are a testimony to the relevance that the ABCC imparts to the Arab Film Festival, which has long become a fixture of the cultural calendar of the city of São Paulo. It is an eagerly anticipated festival that gets lots of young viewers, including non-Arab ones. It is an important thing for everyone to be aware of filmmaking in the Arab countries,” ABCC cultural director Silvia Antibas told ANBA. According to her, the online event should reach a wider audience than in the past.
All films will be available on the festival’s platform right after the opening, and viewable at any time by registered users from August 29 to September 13. Viewing on the SESC website will only be possible on Mondays – August 31 and September 7, 14, and 21..
Premieres
Premieres will include the documentary Beirut, La Vie en Rose (73 min, Spain, 2019), by Èric Motjer. It portrays the lives of four members of the Lebanese Christian elite. They go about their lives in the midst of unsafety and war as if nothing had changed since Lebanon’s independence. The film bears witness to the end of an era, and a way of life that is coming to an end.
Western Arabs (76 min, Denmark, 2019), by Omar Shargawi, is another never-before-shown documentary. It recounts the director’s upbringing being raised by a Danish mother and a Palestinian father in Copenhagen, depicting family, friends and acquaintances and portraying his life in sad, funny, and emotional situations.
The drama The Day I Lost my Shadow (94 min, Syria, France, Lebanon and Qatar, 2018), by Syria’s Soudade Kaadan, is also showing for the first time in Brazil. It was the first Syrian movie ever in the Venice Film Festival competition, in 2018. It won the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Best Debut.
As young pharmacist Sana tries to get some bottled gas during the early days of the Syrian war, things spiral out of control fast. Sana’s panic-stricken journey is portrayed in an impressive hyperrealist style and an inroad into magic realism.
Arab World Film Festival History Selection
Films featured in past editions of the festival include Selves and Others, A Portrait of Edward Said, by Emmanuel Hannon (54 min, France, USA, 2004); Budrus (70 min, USA, 2009), by Julia Bacha (two other films by her are featured); and Nacer Khemir’s Desert Trilogy, featuring Wanderers of the Desert (1984), The Dove’s Lost Necklace (1991), and Bab’Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul (2005).
For additional information and the full program, please refer to the Icarabe website.
Meetings
The festival opening and its three other meetings will be held over Zoom and on the Icarabe YouTube channel.
At 5 pm on September 3, an online chat will feature Syria’s Soudade Kaadan, who directed The Day I Lost my Shadow. Also featured will be Film and Audiovisual History professor at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP), Esther Império Hamburger, and film critic and curator Flávia Guerra as moderator and commenter.
September 4 at 4 pm will see Catalan filmmaker Èric Motjer, who made Beirut – La Vie en Rose, join the historian and director of the Latin American Studies and Cultures Center (LASCC) of Lebanon’s Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), Roberto Khatlab, and Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) International Law professor Salem Nasser. Actor Eduardo Mossri and USP social scientist Natália Calfat will moderate and comment.
On September 11, at 5 pm, Irish filmmaker Garry Keane, who directed Gaza, will speak with USP historian Arlene Clemesha, with journalist Diogo Bercito as moderator.
Quick facts
Arab World Film Festival at Home
August 28-September 13
Festival Platform
SESC Platform
Free of charge
Here are the trailers for some of the featured films:
Beirut, La Vie en Rose:
Western Arabs:
The Day I Lost my Shadow:
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
