{"id":297517,"date":"2021-08-20T16:35:32","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T19:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=297517"},"modified":"2021-08-24T15:42:15","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T18:42:15","slug":"tribute-marks-opening-of-arab-world-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/tribute-marks-opening-of-arab-world-film-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute marks opening of Arab World Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The opening ceremony of the 16th Arab World Film Festival ( pictured above<\/em>) 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\u2019s Arab Culture Institute (ICArabe) and the Brazilian Social Service for Commerce (SESC) of the state of S\u00e3o Paulo. Arab House, the cultural center of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC), is a sponsor.<\/p>\n

To symbolize the tribute, the organizers brought photos of Edgardo Bechara El Khoury, founder of Cine F\u00e9rtil and the Latin-Arab Festival, and partner of ICArabe, who died this year from coronavirus. \u201cWe 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,\u201d said the creator of the festival, Soraya Smaili, who is also a pharmacologist at the S\u00e3o Paulo School of Medicine (EPM) of the Federal University of S\u00e3o Paulo (UNIFESP) and was dean of the university from 2013 to 2021.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cThe 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,\u201d he said in a recorded video presented at the opening.<\/p>\n

Also at the ceremony, Murched Omar Taha, president of ICArabe, recalled the seventh art helps to broaden the viewers\u2019 sense of reality. \u201cMovies take us to distant worlds or to enter the restricted world of an individual\u2019s soul. It is also the common thread expressing people\u2019s feelings, the hardships of life separated by a wall, and gives hope and strength to overcome these and other barriers,\u201d said Taha.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cIn 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,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

For the cultural director of the ABCC, Silvia Antibas, the online format of the festival, used since last year, brought good surprises. \u201cThe virtual screenings had huge access outside S\u00e3o 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 S\u00e3o Paulo,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n

Danilo Miranda, regional director of SESC S\u00e3o Paulo, recalled the importance of providing space and visibility to film production from the Arab world. \u201c[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,\u201d said Miranda.<\/p>\n

Also at the ceremony, Christian Mourroux, artistic director of Cine F\u00e9rtil, spoke about the memory of Edgardo Bechara El Khoury. \u201cHe used to say we do not need to build bridges because they already exist; we only need to walk on them,\u201d he said. Other executives who attended the event were Adhemar de Oliveira, director of Arteplex Filmes, which will distribute the film \u2018Baghdad in My Shadow;\u2019 and Elo\u00edsa Lopez, director of Acquisitions at Synapse Distribution, responsible for distributing ‘200 Meters.\u2019 The ceremony was moderated by Daniela Inoue, senior events analyst of the ABCC.<\/p>\n

See the full schedule here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Quick facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n

16th Arab World Film Festival
\nFree<\/p>\n

From August 20 to September 2
\nFestival\u2019s website: mundoarabe2021.icarabe.org<\/a><\/p>\n

From August 20 to September 16
\nSESC\u2019s Digital Platform: sescsp.org.br\/cinemaemcasa<\/a><\/p>\n

Translated by El\u00fasio Brasileiro<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Executives from SESC, ICArabe and the Arab Brazilian Chamber spoke at this year\u2019s festival opening. The event is online, and the screenings start this Friday (20).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2324,"featured_media":297502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[23124,5701,9231,3784,4639,23126,34339,9535,10235,34721,4329,23125,12969],"class_list":{"0":"post-297517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-arab-camera","9":"tag-arab-films","10":"tag-arab-movies","11":"tag-arab-world-film-festival","12":"tag-camara-arabe-en","13":"tag-cine-fertil-en","14":"tag-cine-fertil-en-2","15":"tag-cinema-en","16":"tag-icarabe-en","17":"tag-mostra-mundo-arabe-en","18":"tag-movies","19":"tag-online-films","20":"tag-sesc-sp"},"wps_subtitle":"Executives from SESC, ICArabe and the Arab Brazilian Chamber spoke at this year\u2019s festival opening. The event is online, and the screenings start this Friday (20).","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}