Sharjah Film Platform 2019 - Second Edition
The second edition of Sharjah Film Platform organised by Sharjah Art Foundation takes place this month running between December 14 - 21.
Compared to the first edition which took place in January this year, it’s a smaller edition, which is a good thing in my opinion.
The program includes over 50 short and feature-length narrative, documentary and experimental films by filmmakers from all over the world, plus a series of talks and workshops.
The schedule and line up of films can be found here, and the talks and workshop schedule can be found here.
The screenings will take place in two venues only (compared to four venues in January) - Al Hamra Cinema, one of Sharjah’s oldest movie theatres and in Sharjah Art Foundation’s open-air Mirage City Cinema.
The talks and workshops are free to attend (advance registrations required), and the film screenings cost Dhs20 general, Dhs15 students, and Dhs100 all access pass.
Film tickets can be purchased at the box office adjacent to Mirage City Cinema, Al Mureijah Art Spaces, 9:00 am–9:00 pm, Saturday to Thursday, and 4:00 pm–12:00 am on Friday.
Tickets at Al Hamra Cinema can be purchased from the box office one hour prior to the scheduled screenings.
The opening night on December 14 will take place at 7.30pm in Mirage City Cinema with a reception and the the premiere screening of three new short films supported by the Short Film Production Grant, Children of the Lake (Emerson Reyes), From the Mountain (Faisal Attrache), Layla, At Last (Julian Alexander).
The following are 10 films from the programme that I am looking forward to seeing, it’s by no means the best of the rest, but a selection to give you a taste of what’s in the line up.
Do take a look at the complete programme listed here and hope you get to watch a few films.
Al Hamra Cinema is one of the very few classic cinema venues left in the country and if you’ve never been, now is a good opportunity to visit it.
This is a photo I took inside Al Hamra Cinema when I was there in January.
4.00 pm - December 15
Al Hamra Cinema
All Inclusive
Director: Corina Schwingruber Ilić
2018 | Switzerland | Documentary | 10 min | No dialogue
A workout on the sun deck, a conga line in the dining hall, a photo shoot with the captain, or a beauty contest for all ages: fun around-the-clock is guaranteed on a cruise, while you float along with your hotel room.
The sea-faring holiday fortresses have come into vogue and business is booming. In the towering ship's wake, we are left behind with a hoard of digital memories and a cloud of exhaust fumes on the horizon.
This screening is part of Programme 2.
Lotus
Director: Mohammadreza Vatandoust
2018 | Iran | Documentary | 14 min | Persian with English subtitles
In April 2010, after the construction of the Lafour Dam, Lafourak and several other villages were flooded under 80 metres of water.
An old woman has waited 12 years for permission to cross Lafour Lake so she can reach an island where the last resident of Lafourak waits for her.
6.00 pm - December 15
Al Hamra CinemA
That Cloud That Never Left
Director: Yashaswini Raghunandagn
2019 | India | Experimental | 65 min | Bengali with English subtitles
In a village not far from here, people use discarded reels of film to make loud toys such as rattlers, whistles and whirligigs. Every day, they make a few hundred toys, and for every hundred toys, they splice, slit and rip strips of film.
As they follow this routine monotonously, a few narratives leak out of the shredded analogues of film and fumigate the surroundings with phantasmagoria.
4.00 pm - 16 December
Al Hamra Cinema
Are You Glad I'm Here
Director: Noor Gharzeddine
2018 | Lebanon | Narrative | 85 min | Arabic and English with Arabic, English and French subtitles
A Lebanese woman and an American girl become friends and accidental partners-in-crime in a story that explores the nature of happiness and self-actualization through the multicultural lens of Lebanese-American filmmaker Noor Gharzeddine.
Nadine is a resilient housewife, wise and fiery-although years of taking care of a husband sinking into alcoholism have crushed her joie de vivre. Kirsten is a quirky, self-assured post-grad who has recently relocated to Beirut to teach English.
As their friendship deepens, Nadine recovers her vivacity and challenges Kirstin's neat understanding of the world. One day Kirsten finds Nadine badly beaten, and Kirsten refuses to leave her alone with her husband, Pierre. Tensions rise until Nadine is pushed to the point of no return.
8.00 pm - December 16
Mirage City Cinema
Dead Horse Nebula
Director: Tarık Aktaş
2018 | Turkey | Narrative | 73 min | Turkish with English subtitles
Seven-year-old Hay found a dead horse in an open field and watched his father and other adults struggle to get rid of it. Unsure of this memory, he is nonetheless very influenced by the incident, and when he cuts himself during a sacrificial rite, everything comes rushing back.
Step by step, Hay goes down an inevitable spiritual path where he confronts the relationship between humans and nature and the unity of life and matter.
4.00 pm - December 17
Al Hamra Cinema
Liyana
Directors: Aaron Kopp and Amanda Kopp
2017 | Documentary | 77 min | English and SiSwati with English subtitles
An animated African tale is born in the imaginations of five orphaned children in Eswatini, who collaborate to tell a story of perseverance drawn from their darkest memories and brightest dreams.
The journey of their fictional character, a Swazi girl on a dangerous quest to rescue her young twin brothers, is interwoven with poetic documentary scenes to create a genre-defying celebration of the transformative power of storytelling.
8.00 pm - December 18
Mirage City Cinema
Boral Pather Panchali
Director: Alex Cunningham
2017 | United States of America | Documentary | 12 min | No dialogue
Alex Cunningham travelled to India to find the shooting location of Satyajit Ray’s 1955 masterpiece, Pather Panchali.
Once a rural village, Boral is now a bustling suburb with electricity, running water and densely packed paved roads—the signs of any modern Indian town. However, in many ways, Boral remains the same. The town knows and is proud of its place in cinematic history, but life goes on uninterrupted.
8.00pm - December 19
Mirage City Cinema
Another Point of View
Director: Bilal Al Khatib
2019 | Palestine | Narrative | 15 min | Arabic with English subtitles
Siblings Fadel and Najeeba have an exceptional relationship. Fadel has a so-called ‘mental illness’, and Najeeba perceives reality in her own way—not in response to her brother’s situation, but rather because life, as she sees it, is much simpler than it seems, simple enough that it does not matter how people in their village judge her and her brother.
This screening is part of Programme 16.
Dunya’s Day
Director: Raed Alsemari
2019 | Saudi Arabia | Narrative | 14 min | Arabic with English subtitles
Dunya’s perfectly planned graduation party spirals towards disaster when she is abandoned by all her household help.
8.00 pm - December 20
Mirage City Cinema
Paris Stalingrad
Directors: Hind Meddeb and Thim Naccache
2019 | France | Documentary | 86 min | Arabic, English and French with English subtitles
This documentary questions how people can survive in a space designed to eliminate their existence. In the summer of 2016, refugees camp in the Stalingrad district of Paris, where they are subjected to round-ups, police raids and fencing.
A collective emerges, encouraging co-existence. The poetry of Souleymane, a young refugee from Darfur, intermingles with the filmmaker’s voice-over to create a memory of the place.