New year, new hopes

Happy New Year! It's another year, another decade. I just looked at my post last January and saw that I listed the following as my personal wish for 2010:

• Good health and happiness to all my loved ones
• Silent movies make a come back
• Deira becomes the new hotspot in Dubai - but for the real Dubaians, the faux Dubaians won't be welcome
• Staying in becomes the new going out and people throwing fabulous house parties and movie nights
• The start of a creative revolution in Dubai

Happy to report some of them happened last year. There were a few occasions where silent  films were screened in the UAE, so hope more will be shown this year; the creative scene in the country has been active, so more can be expected this year. Deira is still an undiscovered part of town for many and maybe that's a good thing, I guess it means only genuinely interested people wil make an effort to go there.

So here's my personal wish list for 2011:

• Good health and happiness to all.
• More silent films at our cinemas and film festivals.
• Cinemas screening old classics, art house and non-Hollywood films.
• Road trips to discover and rediscover the cities in the United Arab Emirates.
• Events and exhibitions in unusual places. It's time to stop following a formulaic approach to events. Let's have concerts and film screenings in our parks, poetry and book readings in bookshops and libraries, exhibitions outside gallery spaces. 

What's your wish for 2011?