São Paulo – The opening ceremony of the 16th Arab World Film Festival ( pictured above) occurred this Thursday (19) and was marked by tributes to victims of COVID-19 and reflections. The festival will premiere seven films from August 20 to September 16, 2021. The event is organized by Brazil’s Arab Culture Institute (ICArabe) and the Brazilian Social Service for Commerce (SESC) of the state of São Paulo. Arab House, the cultural center of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC), is a sponsor.
To symbolize the tribute, the organizers brought photos of Edgardo Bechara El Khoury, founder of Cine Fértil and the Latin-Arab Festival, and partner of ICArabe, who died this year from coronavirus. “We want to pay tribute to the victims, families and all the people who are fighting this disease, and to the Arab culture and culture in general,” said the creator of the festival, Soraya Smaili, who is also a pharmacologist at the São Paulo School of Medicine (EPM) of the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) and was dean of the university from 2013 to 2021.
The curator of the festival and director of Domestic Relations at ICArabe, Arthur Jafet, pointed out how the pandemic scenario also impacted the choice of works for this edition. “The spirit of indignation guided this selection for the festival. This year and a half radically changed our lives. Movies are a great way to get to know not only the culture but also the situation in Arab countries in a way news from the mainstream media would not reckon, because the films bring in them something from the context in which they were made,” he said in a recorded video presented at the opening.
Also at the ceremony, Murched Omar Taha, president of ICArabe, recalled the seventh art helps to broaden the viewers’ sense of reality. “Movies take us to distant worlds or to enter the restricted world of an individual’s soul. It is also the common thread expressing people’s feelings, the hardships of life separated by a wall, and gives hope and strength to overcome these and other barriers,” said Taha.
Ambassador Osmar Chohfi, president of the ABCC, spoke on the importance of supporting, through the cultural arm of the institution, the Arab House, initiatives such as the festival. “In addition to [the Arab House] being a kind of cultural center, it seeks to support diffusion. We will do this through agreements with universities and a study center. With a university in Lebanon, we are even already carrying out the recovery of the history of Arab immigration. It is an important project we are developing,” he explained.
For the cultural director of the ABCC, Silvia Antibas, the online format of the festival, used since last year, brought good surprises. “The virtual screenings had huge access outside São Paulo. We received a lot of appreciation from people who were able to watch. These are unpublished films difficult to access. I think the hybrid format is a request we are receiving now and will not ignore. It is important to give this access to people outside the city of São Paulo,” she concluded.
Danilo Miranda, regional director of SESC São Paulo, recalled the importance of providing space and visibility to film production from the Arab world. “[This production] can show us other stories and other ways of seeing the world. It complements an institutional mission seeking to provide an opportunity for all visions of the human being to be worked on and discussed. The goal is always to build a better country and society so everyone can have a better standard of living,” said Miranda.
Also at the ceremony, Christian Mourroux, artistic director of Cine Fértil, spoke about the memory of Edgardo Bechara El Khoury. “He used to say we do not need to build bridges because they already exist; we only need to walk on them,” he said. Other executives who attended the event were Adhemar de Oliveira, director of Arteplex Filmes, which will distribute the film ‘Baghdad in My Shadow;’ and Eloísa Lopez, director of Acquisitions at Synapse Distribution, responsible for distributing ‘200 Meters.’ The ceremony was moderated by Daniela Inoue, senior events analyst of the ABCC.
See the full schedule here.
Quick facts:
16th Arab World Film Festival
Free
From August 20 to September 2
Festival’s website: mundoarabe2021.icarabe.org
From August 20 to September 16
SESC’s Digital Platform: sescsp.org.br/cinemaemcasa
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
