The 5th edition of CineMAS - The Alternative Film Festival at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi is taking place between May 29-June 4. I was invited back to curate this year’s edition, my third time after working on the 2021 and 2022 edition.

As I did in the past two years, there’s a theme and a double bill each day, and the festival will start and end with one new and one old film from Tunisia.

Below is the schedule and line up. You can buy your tickets here.
I will be there to introduce each film and we will have post screening discussions for some of the films, details will be added soon. If in or near Abu Dhabi, please join us.

May 29 - Opening Film - 7.30pm

Under the Fig Trees (Erige Sehiri, 2022, 92 min)
Tunisia, France, Switzerland, Germany, Qatar, Arabic with English and Arabic subtitles, PG-13

In northwest Tunisia, young women work the summer harvest. Under the gaze of older workers and men, they flirt, tease, argue. Throughout the day, the orchard becomes a theatre of emotions, where everyone's dreams and hopes are played out.

This screening is in partnership with the NYUAD Film and New Media Program and NYUAD Arts Center.

May 30 - Different Realities

7.00pm
Without Her / Bi Roya (Arian Vazirdaftari, 2022, 111 min)
Iran, Persian, Danish with English subtitles, PG-13

Just two weeks before Roya is set to emigrate from Iran to Denmark, she encounters a quiet young girl who appears lost and doesn’t remember anything. Roya takes her in, providing her with a home and introducing her to her husband, family and friends – all the while blissfully unaware that this girl has come to replace her.

9.00pm
The Dam (Ali Cherri, 2022, 80 min)
France, Sudan, Lebanon, Germany, Serbia, Qatar, Arabic with English subtitles, PG-13

Sudan, near the Merowe dam.
Maher works in a traditional brickyard fed by the waters of the Nile. Every evening, he secretly wanders off into the desert to build a mysterious construction made of mud. While the Sudanese people rise to claim their freedom, his creation starts to take a life of its own…

May 31 - Preservation

7.00pm
Foragers / Al Yad Al Khadra (Jumana Manna, 2022, 64 min)
Palestine, Arabic, Hebrew with English subtitles, PG

Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs.

The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect.

Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.

9.00pm
Tara (Volker Sattel and Francesca Bertin, 2022, 86 min)
Germany, Italy, Italian with English subtitles, PG-15

The Tara is a river on the outskirts of Taranto whose waters are believed to have healing properties; bathing there is a tradition for the inhabitants of the city. Starting from this bucolic place, Volker Sattel and Francesca Bertin take us on a journey through a territory where myths clash with reality and where so-called progress has taken a heavy toll on nature and society.

June 1 - Neighbourhoods

7.00pm
19B (Ahmad Abdalla, 2022, 90 min)
Egypt, Arabic with English subtitles, PG-13

In a dilapidated villa, lives an old guard who watches the villa and considers it his home.

One day, he finds himself forced to face a situation with a person who lives in the opposite street, which will mark a turning point in his life.

9.00pm
White Building (Kavich Neang, 2021, 90 min)
Cambodia, France, China, Qatar, Khmer with English subtitles, PG-13

20-year-old Samnang and two of his friends live in the White Building, a landmark tenement in Phnom Penh. In this fast-changing city, the three boys practice their dance routine dreaming of television talent contests while their parents lead a more traditional lifestyle. But the White Building is to be demolished.

Samnang observes his father unsuccessfully attempting to bring together his divided neighbors on the government’s compensation offers for residents to move out, and he must face his best friend’s departure from Cambodia. Samnang finds that the stable environment he has always called home is on shaky ground.

June 2 - Science and Spirituality

7.00pm
A Letter from Al Barzakh (Waleed Al Madani, 2019, 15 min)
Belgium, Arabic with English subtitles, PG

“Have you ever imagined your first thoughts if your conscious woke up right after you die? I did. I thought of loneliness and my mother. Muslims believe in a period of time where the dead live, a period of time between the moment they die, and their judgment day. It is unclear how they live there, the Quran doesn't give clear and concrete details about it, however, it did give enough for us to believe in it and understand that this is where we all are going, it is called Al Barzakh.

In this experimental documentary I will take you with me through my first moments in Al Barzakh, the moments I start to realize my loneliness, realize that I’m not going to see my mother again, my ocean of thoughts, my fire, my home, my final wash, going through visual memories and feelings, and the moment I realize where I am, freed from loneliness.” - Waleed Al Madani

7.15pm
All of Our Heartbeats are Connected Through Exploding Stars (Jennifer Rainsford, 2022, 77 min)
Sweden, English, Japanese, English subtitles, PG

On March 11, 2011 the largest earthquake in modern history hit Japan and then, thirty minutes later, dark tsunami waves roared in over the coast of North-Eastern Japan dragging cars, homes and lives out into the sea.

In the film we meet Yasu who has done over 100 dives in search of his lost wife. Sachiko keeps writing letters to her husband that was taken by the wave. Satoko is a young woman who struggles with overcoming her trauma from the disaster. On the other side of the ocean, in the Hawaiian island of Kaho’olawe, a group of volunteers are gathering to clean the beach from Japanese tsunami debris floating in from the Ocean. They are all sharing the stories of the afterlife.

Jennifer Rainsford’s debut feature takes the viewer to an epic journey, from the life on Earth as seen from outer space, to the smallest microcosmic perspectives, to find out how humans, animals and nature heal after a trauma. Told in the form of a film essay, backed up with scientific research and the staggering score of Teho Teardo, All of Our Heartbeats are Connected Through Exploding Stars tells a tale of interconnectedness of all living organisms on planet Earth.

9.00pm
Fragments From Heaven (Adnane Baraka, 2022, 82 min)
Morocco, Framce, Berber, Arabic, French with English subtitles, PG

Looking for rocks in the vastness of the Moroccan desert may seem absurd. Unless they’re celestial stones, with the power to change the lives of those who find them. Mohamed – the nomad – and Abderrahmane – the scientist – comb through the arid lands all looking for meteorites, each with its own reasons.

June 3 - Bayn Al Khaleej (Between the Gulf)

3.00pm
Gulf Shorts - Past Present
A program of short films from the Gulf region by filmmakers looking at the past through personal and cultural histories. All the films are rated PG-13, and in Arabic with English subtitles).

VHS Tape Replaced (Maha Al Saati, 2022, 17 min, Saudi Arabia)
Set in 1987, a young Saudi man attempts to impress his crush by mimicking her favourite pop artist. After recording the video tape, it goes to the wrong hands.

And Then They Burn The Sea (Majid Al-Remaihi 2021, 13 min, Qatar)
The filmmaker ruminates on the experience of bearing witness to his mother’s gradual and terminal memory loss. Weaving through a personal family archive, re-enacted dreams and rituals, the film underlines the promise of cinema as a medium for memories even at their most irretrievable. An elegiac contemplation on familial memory and loss.

Now Showing (Abdullah Al Daihani, 2014, 19 min, Kuwait)
It is 1983 in Kuwait, a young film buff, Mishari introduces his pal Abdulrahman to the magic of the movies at the local Granada Cinema – even though Abdulrahman’s conservative family has forbidden him to go to the cinema. Soon, the boys spend all their time watching movies – and talking about the films they’re going to make someday. There are cruel twists in store for the youngsters, but the bond they share through cinema can never be broken.

Clouds (Muzna Almusafer, 2019, 15 min, Oman)
In 1978, in the south of Oman, Dablan, a widower lives with his children Salma and Amr in a traditional rural village. Dablan faces pressure from his tribe to kill a leopard threatening the village - pressure that increases when he resolves to set the animal free. A journey inside a tribal society undergoing transformation, shot with intimacy and palpable empathy.

The screenings will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with Muzna Almusafer, director of Clouds.

5.00pm
The Falconer (Adam Sjoberg and Seanne Winslow, 2021, 100 min)
USA, Oman, Arabic and English with English subtitles, PG-13

Inspired by true events, The Falconer is about two best friends, Tariq, the son of a poor beekeeper, and Cai, a privileged Westerner with a passion for endangered animals. They work together at a dilapidated zoo in Oman, blissfully separated from many of the troubles of the outside world.

Their care-free friendship is challenged when Tariq promises to help his sister, Alia, escape from an abusive marriage. Cai’s worldview is pitted against Tariq’s daring plan to steal animals from the zoo and sell them on the black market to help empower Alia to leave her marriage. They are forced to wrestle with morally complex choices that reveal the vast distance between their worlds.

7.00pm
UAE Short Films - Family Matters
A program of short films made in the UAE about various stages of family relations.
All the films are rated PG-13.

1-0 (Nada ElAzhary, 2017, 10 min, Arabic with English subtitles)
When a flirty text to her crush accidentally gets sent to her dad’s phone instead, a shy teenager must do whatever it takes to delete the message before her dad finishes watching the match and checks his phone.

Mommy (Ahmed Almulla, 2019, 6 min, Arabic with English subtitles)
Suhail, a young Emirati, is going on a date with Leila. While the date seems to be going well, things soon start going pretty bad, the main reason, Suhail’s mother is in his ear and she is taking over controlling every step Suhail should be doing.

Mid-Distance (Hamad Saghran, 2022, 11 min, Arabic with English subtitles)
Ex-fiances Maysaaa and Bader meet in the middle of the road after Maysaa's car breaks down. A dialogue between them begins where their relationship ended.

Bundle of Joy (Majed AlZubaidi, 2023, 7 min, Arabic with English subtitles)
On the eve of his first childbirth, Hamad, a father-to-be, struggles to escape a psychological trip that grows from the idea that his life will go downward spiral once he becomes a father.

Unveiling Selma (Mariam Alserkal and Maaria Sayed, 2022, 14 min, Arabic with English subtitles)
In rural UAE, Selma divides her days between her seven year old daughter, and the daily household chores until she decides to take a stand for herself

Sheikh of Mussafah (Waleed Al Madani, 2015, 10 min, Arabic with English subtitles)
An exploration of a man’s unstable relationship with a father who raised him amidst his mechanic shop and tow truck business in Mussafah, Abu Dhabi’s industrial area.

Ranapakhara (Swapna Kurup, 2018, 10 min, English)
In a community center in Dubai, Indian classical dancer Vonita Singh applies her art form to bring back movement in the lives of people affected by Parkinson’s.

The screenings will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with the filmmakers.

9.30pm
Primary Organs (Michael John Whelan, 2021, 43 min)
UAE, Arabic with English subtitles, PG

Primary Organs intertwines diverse but connected vignettes from historic and contemporary maritime cultures of the Arabian Peninsula: a diver travels to sites once visited by Jacques Cousteau during his 1954 survey for oil, an abandoned pearl diving village built from coral is a site of simultaneous archaeological exploration and restoration, and retired fishermen sing endangered songs once used to add rhythm to their work.

Central to the film is the representation of coral as an eco-marker of our interspecies dependency: the marine biologist keeps samples alive in a laboratory aquarium, a village is built entirely from it, and as a votive gesture a diver brings a piece of it to a former oil survey site.

Through its slow-paced language and choreographed underwater scenes, Primary Organs explores local relationships to the sea, echoes of petro-state neocolonialism, and the roles of complicity and gesture within our climate crisis. Punctuating this journey is the voice of the marine biologist who shares her poetic observations and trepidation for the future.

Courtesy of the artist and Grey Noise, Dubai

June 4 - Home Movies

3.00pm
Love is Not an Orange (Otilia Babara, 2022, 73 min)
Belgium, Moldova, Netherlands, France, Romanian with English subtitles, PG-15

In the early 90’s, women left Moldova in large numbers to provide for their families. Unable to return home, they found a peculiar way to stay in touch: sending large cardboard boxes filled with gifts and food you could only dream about in those days. In return, their children would send videotapes. This exchange became a ritual among thousands of families.

Video cameras and presents allowed these mothers and children to share glimpses of their realities while being apart. Through these intimate private archives, Otilia Babara depicts the fragility of family bonds through the eyes of a generation of mothers and daughters who were forced to live apart in order to survive. While doing so, she portrays a post-soviet country caught in a crossroads of history. A country whose women were unwittingly put in charge of making the transition from communism to capitalism.

5.00pm
The Super 8 Years (Annie Ernaux and David Ernaux-Briot, 2022, 61 min)
France, French with English subtitles, PG

The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following opens a treasure trove with this delicate journey into her family’s memory.

Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 – when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went – this portrait of a time, place, and moment of personal and political significance takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR.

Supplying her own introspective voiceover, Ernaux and her co-filmmaker, her son David, guide the viewer through fragments of a decade, diffuse and vivid in equal measure. The Super 8 Years is a remarkable visual extension of Ernaux’s ongoing literary project to make sense of the mysterious past and the unknowable future.

This screening is in partnership with Institut Français, Abu Dhabi.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with Dr. Yann Rodier, Head of History Department and Associate Professor at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi.

June 4 - Closing Film - 7.30pm

The Silences of the Palace / Samt El Koussour (Moufida Tlatli, 1994, 127 min)
Tunisia/France, Arabic, French with English subtitles, PG-15

A story of loss and love, The Silences of the Palace follows a mother and a daughter at two crucial times in their lives and, also, in the history of Tunisia. In the 1960s, Alia returns to the colonial palace she grew up in and, in flashbacks, recalls the struggles of her mother. Examining class, gender, and colonialism, this tour de force film also features the screen debut of now-superstar Hend Sabry.

Winner of Golden Camera - Special Mention, Festival de Cannes, 1994.

CineMAS 2023 - The Alternative Film Festival at Manarat Al Saadiyat