São Paulo – Rio de Janeiro venue Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) is hosting the Arab Women’s Film Festival this month. The event launched on the 7th and will run until the 25th, marking International Women’s Day (March 8th) by featuring movies by Arab women.
The festival includes 37 feature and short films by international award-winning filmmakers, with sessions free of charge. The movies were made in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Syria and Tunisia.
Curated by Analu Bambirra and Ana França, the festival kicked off with the Brazilian premiere of The Blessed, which won Best Actress in the 2017 Venice International Film Festival, for Lyna Khoudri, and Best Director at the Dubai International Film Festival.
The feature’s diretor Sofia Djama, of Algeria, is at the festival. She taught a masterclass on scriptwriting. The holder of a Literature degree from Algiers University, she will also sit in a discussion after a screening of her movie on the 22nd.
Debates and panels will explore political and social issues touched on by the films. Featured movies include 13 feature films, eight premières and 24 short films – like Aya, a Tunisian-French-Qatari production (pictured at the top of this article). The Festival is a production of Partisane Filmes, with sponsorship from Banco do Brasil via the Culture Incentive Act (Rouanet Act).
Genres will include fiction, documentary and experimental. “Rather than purporting to present one single answer to what being an Arab woman is about, we intend ot discuss the many possibilities in picking some of the productions released from the 2000s on. Most of the featured films were not commercially released in Brazil,” Analu Bambirra was quoted as saying in a press release.
The Festival’s panels will be: The Arab world in female form: religion, nation and feminisms,” and Palestinian bodies-fictions: filmic thinking in a violated geography.”
Quick facts
Arab Women’s Film Festival
March 7-25
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro – Rua Primeiro de Março, 66 – Centro – Rio de Janeiro (RJ)
To find out more please call +55 21 3808-2020 or go to the Festival’s website.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
