PLACES/FACES - A New Film Series Curated by Hind Mezaina
PLACES/FACES is a new film series curated by me that will launch at Alliance Francaise in Dubai on June 12.
The (hopefully monthly) series will focus on cities, people and urban culture followed by discussions with invited speakers. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while and I hope people in Dubai will respond to the screenings. I think it is rare to have public discussions about cities and how we engage with our surroundings, and I hope the film screenings will be a way in to have these discussions.
To launch this series, the focus will be on Dubai (where else?) over two evenings, on June 12 and June 13.
I’m really looking forward to this and hope you will join me. Thankful to Alliance Francaise in Dubai for offering its theatre space to do this.
Saturday, June 12 at 5pm:
A FALLIBLE GIRL
Director: Conrad Clark
2013, 104 min, English and Mandarin with English subtitles)
A FALLIBLE GIRL is an underseen film about friendship, entrepreneurship and hardship in the city of Dubai. I first watched in 2013 at the now defunct Gulf Film Festival. The film premiered at IFFR earlier that year and it has been shown at a few other film festivals but it didn’t get much attention here in the UAE. I am hoping this will be an opportunity to show the film to more people and reassess the film 8 years later.
Lifei, decides to set up a mushroom farm in the desert between Dubai and Abu Dhabi with her best friend. It's been hard earned cash for these 2 Chinese girls in working in Dubai, now they are ready to go clean, become business women. Life quickly gets tough for the girls, and whereas her best friend is quick to return to her former life, Lifei is resolute. She has to manage a team of workers from Bangladesh, find investors and keep growing and delivering mushrooms throughout Dubai. Just as she gets a grip on the matter, and gains some control over her life, personal tragedy pushes her to return to China. The only problem is she is unable to leave until she pays back the mounting debt she has got herself into.
Excerpt from a film review that could help explain why I want to show this film:
"A Fallible Girl is a film about globalisation — as well as a film that is itself the result of globalisation...However, despite the fact that it is a clear example of transnational cinema, and that it openly tackles the problematic of capitalism in our globalised world, A Fallible Girl adroitly circumvents all the moves common in this kind of film — introducing us, instead, to a central character who fails to fit any of the cinematic stereotypes of this sort of project." (Cristina Álvarez López, Film Krant)
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Dr. Yuting Wang, Professor of Sociology at the American University of Sharjah and the author of Chinese in Dubai: Money, Pride and Soul-Searching (Brill, 2020). The National recently featured the book which you can read here.
Tickets:
AED 35, free for Alliance Francaise students with promocode COMP, AED 15 for Alliance Francaise Library members with promocode CINEM
You can buy your tickets here.
Sunday, June 13 at 7pm:
MADE IN DUBAI: SHORT FILMS by Amirah Tajdin & MUSIC VIDEOS by Philip Jamal Rachid
The second night will focus on short films and music videos featuring Dubai by two Dubai based filmmakers, Amirah Tajdin and Philip Jamal Rachid aka Soul Trotter. The screenings will be followed by a Q&A with the two directors to discuss their works, what it takes to be a filmmaker based here and the challenges faced in making personal artistic projects compared to commercial work.
This screening is free to attend, but please register here to keep track of numbers.
Seating is limited to 50 people in the auditorium.
NOTE: COVID-19 guidelines for all the screenings:
The seats are limited to 50 people with 2 metres social distance.
Face masks must be worn at all times.
