São Paulo – The 47th São Paulo International Film Festival will feature eight Arab productions amongst the 360 films selected from 96 countries. Qatar is a highlight for being involved in the production of five films – including three non-Arab. Other Arab countries with films are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestina, and Tunisia
Three of them are production from other countries but with Arab directors like We Dare to Dream (96 min., 2023), a UK-produced documentary directed by filmmaker Waad Al-Kateab, the pseudonym of a Syrian journalist and activities. The film brings complete access to the IOC Refugee Olympic Team in 2020.
The festival takes place from October 19 to November 1st across 24 movie theaters and cultural venues, and it’ll also screen some free online films on platforms Itaú Cultural Play, Sesc Digital, and SPcine Play. The festival’s program is set to be released on October 16 on its official website.
Check out below the films featuring Arab themes, filmmakers or production.
A Gaza Weekend (90 min., 2022) is part of the festival’s International Perspective. The fiction movie (opening photo) is a production from Palestine and the United Kingdom directed by British Palestinian Basil Khalil.
Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, it tells the story of a sealed-off Israel following the outbreak of a deadly virus. Gaza has become the safest place in the region, leaving a British journalist and his Israeli girlfriend trapped on the wrong side of the border. With no one else to turn to, they must entrust two Palestinian street merchants who promise a way out in exchange for much needed cash. What follows is a hilarious culture clash comedy-adventure as the couple desperately try everything to get back home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtvQoNPEwpI
In Valley of Exile (96 min., 2023), two sisters arrive in Lebanon‘s Bekka Valley at the onset of the Syrian war, embarking on a journey into exile that tests their loyalty to their country, their family and each other. The fiction feature film is a production from Canada and Lebanon directed by Iranian American Anna Fahr that’s part of the New Directors Competition of the festival.
Abbe Hassan is an award-winning Swedish director and producer of Lebanese descent. In his Swedish production Exodus (95 min., 2022), two worlds collide when Sam 40, a professional people smuggler, reluctantly saves Amal, a 12-year-old girl whose whole family has gone missing in the Syrian war. Amal believes that they are on their way to Sweden so she sets out on a journey to find them. The film is part of the New Directors Competition of the festival.
Behind the Mountains (98 min., 2023) is a production from Tunisia, Belgium, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The fiction film by Tunisian director Mohamed Ben Attia will be part of the International Perspective section. After spending four years in jail, Rafik has only one plan, to take his son behind the mountains and show him his amazing discovery. The film was launched from the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section.
In Animalia (91 min., 2023), French Moroccan director Sofia Alaoui tells a sci-fi drama. As she nears the end of her pregnancy, Itto and her in-laws find their lives turned upside down by a supernatural event. It was produced by France, Morocco and Qatar. Alaoui is competing at the festival’s New Directors Competition.
In the documentary Bloodhound (97 min., 2023), Algerian-Italian Yasmina Zouzat, who was born in Switzerland, recalls that when she was a legal reporter, aged 28, she received an instruction: never show blood. Twenty years later, Bloodhound disobeys this masculine command given at the time of the contaminated-blood trial. Starting with her instinctive desire for bloody images, like the hunting dog that gives the film its title, the filmmaker advances through a series of bifurcations, taking her camera to places that are revealed in fits and starts. Bloodhound is a production from France and Switzerland. Zoutat is competing at the festival’s New Directors Competition.
Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the desert (111 min., 2023) is a film directed by Germany’s Margarethe von Trotta and produced by Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Jordan and Italy. Part of the International Perspective section, the biopic tells the story of the remarkable and charismatic Ingeborg Bachmann, who has conquered the male dominated bastion of German-language literature with her poetry. Though still young, Ingeborg Bachmann is at the peak of her career when she meets famous playwright Max Frisch. Their love is passionate, but professional and personal friction begins to disrupt the harmony. When Ingeborg is struggling, they travel to the desert together.
The Qatar Film Institute has funded film productions around the world. Three of the productions from Qatar that are part of the festival are about other cultures.
Excursion (93 min., 2023) is a production by Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, France, Norway and Qatar. Bosnian director Una Gunjak brings a film centered on Iman, a teenager in Sarajevo who is seeking validation and who reveals she had sex for the first time during a game of “truth or dare” among middle schoolers. What ensues is a web of lies – including one involving her own pregnancy – that ends in an out-of-control controversy. Gunjak is in the New Directors Competition.
In Monisme (115 min., 2023) Indonesia director Riar Rizaldi brings several professional actors and non-actor professionals portraying a dynamic of human-nature relationship in one of the most active stratovolcanoes in the world, Mount Merapi in Indonesia.
In the shadows of recent eruptions, these actors play a story that is written together with volcanologist, sand miner, and a mystic—people who have a close bond with the mountain, potentially illustrating fiction and nonfiction situations that could and would have happened in Merapi. The production is from Indonesia and Qatar. Rizald is part of the New Directors Competition.
Finally, Mongolian director Zoljargal Purevdash brings fiction feature film If Only I Could Hibernate (96 min., 2023), a production from Mongolia, France, Switzerland and Qatar.
A poor but prideful teenager, Ulzii, lives in the yurt area of Mongolia’s capital city Ulaanbaatar with his family. He is a physics genius and is determined to win a science competition to earn a scholarship. When his mother finds a job in the countryside, she leaves him and his younger siblings to face a harsh winter by themselves. Ulzii will have to take a risky job to look after them all and keep his home heated.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
