Femmes Film Festival at Alliance Française Dubai
Alliance Française in Dubai is hosting for the second time the “Femmes Film Festival”, a film festival dedicated to female movie directors.
The festival includes a series of short and feature films, ranging from narrative, documentary, experimental. The films are selected from the Mediterranean Women's Films 2018, a women's film festival created in 2005 in Marseilles, France.
If you can only make time for one film, then I suggest you must see Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy As Lazaro, an exceptional film and one of my favourite films of 2018.
All the screenings, except for the first one, will be at the Alliance Française Dubai Theatre. All the screenings are free to attend and the films will screen in their original language with English subtitles.
Saturday, March 9 at 6.30pm
The Studio, Dubai Opera
Benzine
Director: Sarra Abidi
2017 | Tunisia | 90 min
In southeastern Tunisia, Salem and Halima are waiting for news from their son Ahmed. He fled to Italy after the revolution, like hundreds of young people.
Salem sells smuggled gasoline with Libya. He stalked the migrant smuggler, who was obviously involved; Halima urged him to obtain information from the authorities, mute about the possible arrival in Italy... How to live in permanent doubt?
"There is little or no mention of those who remain in the country of origin. Sometimes it's harder for those who stay."
The film will be preceded by a talk titled “Balance for Better” starting at 5.00pm, with Christine Ishkinazi, co-programmer of Films Femmes Méditerranée and specialist in women's cinema.
Tuesday, March 12 at 7:30pm
Alliance Française Dubai Theatre
Marlon
Director: Jessica Palud
2017 | France | 19min
Fourteen-year-old Marlon visits her mother in prison for the first time since she was jailed. Protected by her family and friends, Marlon persists, despite everything, in believing that her mother is her childhood heroine.
Lazaro Felice / Happy As Lazzaro
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
2018 | Italy, 130 min
Lazzaro is a naive and optimistic 20 year old farmer; Tancredi is instead a young man with a fervid imagination.
Between the two it is born an unexpected friendship that above all for Lazzaro turns out to be an important moment of growth.
Over time, the two face many difficulties together, until Tancredi makes his tracks lose in the city, and Lazzaro sets out to search for him.
The film won Best Screenplay award at Cannes Film Festival 2018.
Saturday, March 16 at 5.00pm
Alliance Française Dubai Theatre
Mad
Director: Sophie Tavert
2017 | France | 25 min
Madeleine is a war reporter working in a conflict zone. One night, Mazen, a civilian reporter, bursts into her hideout.
Those Who Remain
Director: Eliane Raheb
2016 | Lebanon, Syria | 95 min
A 60-year-old Christian farmer struggles to hold onto the land he has tilled for decades despite mounting tensions in Lebanon’s picturesque Akkar District.
Jury Prize: Dubai International Film Festival (Feature Film category), Tetouan Festival and Ismaili Festival (Documentary category)
Saturday, March 23 at 5.00pm
Alliance Française Dubai Theatre
Hearts for dinner
Director: Renee Koutoula
2017 | Greece | 21min
Antigoni, an immigrant to a small Greek village, works as a housekeeper for her cousin. One day she is assigned to cook artichokes for her cousin‘s guests. This ends up to be harder than it seemed and makes her reevaluate life.
Never leave me
Director: Aida Begic
2017 | Bosnia | 96min
Never Leave Me is the story of three little Syrian refugees, Isa, Ahmad and Motaz, running away from their orphanage and striving to build a new life.
They start selling paper tissues to the visitors of the historic Balıklıgöl.
Everything seems fine at the beginning, but a deadbeat named Karaca, to whom Isa is indebted to, is about to get them in trouble…
Aida Begić, who consistently takes on the subject of children holding on to life under difficult conditions, is pointing out the solutions in the midst of desperations with this new movie.
Tuesday, March 26 at 7:30pm
Alliance Française Dubai Theatre
Primo
Director: Federica Gianni
2017 | Italy | 18min
On a visit to meet his girlfriend’s parents in a remote village in Tuscany, Primo is forced to prove his masculinity on a wild boar hunt.
Djamilia / Djamilia
Director: Aminatou Echard
2018 | France | 84min
The film, set in Kyrgystan, is a search for Jamilia, the main character of Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel, a young woman who rebels against the rules of Kyrgyz society.
We meet women who, in talking about Jamilia, reveal their own private lives and desires, the rules they chafe under and their ideas of freedom.
Saturday, March 30 at 5.00pm
Alliance Française Dubai Theatre
Oubour / Crossing
Director: Dania Sharabati
2017 | Lebanon | 14min
A Palestinian family residing in Lebanon has its world turned around when the eldest member of the family, Eitidal, has a very short time left to live.
Eitidal suddenly has the strength to pack her bags when deciding she wants to die peacefully in her native country. Lana and her mother are left with no choice but to take Eitidal on a journey to an unknown land, her dreamland, Palestine.
Assia
Director: Malika Zaire
2017 | Morocco, France | 13 min
At school, 15-year-old Assia seems concerned.
For a class assignment, she must define the notion of living together without using writing.
Through her school presentation, she portrays an injustice she and her family suffered during the November 2015 attacks in Paris.
Il se passe quelque chose
Director: Anne Alix
2018 | France | 101min
Avignon. Irma, who doesn’t seem to find her place in the world crosses paths with Dolores, a free and uninhibited woman who is in a mission to write a gay-friendly travel guide on a forgotten area in Provence.
The unlikely duo takes to the road and contrary to the sought after picturesque and sexy Provence, they discover a more complex and a warm-hearted humanity, struggling to exist. For both of them the trip becomes an initiatory journey.