Sharjah Film Platform 6 Roundup

The sixth edition of Sharjah Film Platform, a film festival organised by Sharjah Art Foundation had the tag line “Cinema. Culture. Community.”

The word “community” made me wonder who or where is this community (the Arabic version said تواصل / tawasul which means to communicate). 

Every edition I attended except last year (because I was out of town) has lacked the presence of a Sharjah or UAE based audience. Attendance is mostly comprised of the filmmakers participating in the festival, most of which have been flown in from abroad and they outnumber the local attendees. On many occasions it would just be me and a handful of others who represent a local audience.

Besides opening nights normally comprised of invited guests, VIPS and sponsors, the only time I’ve seen a packed venue was for the public conversation A.R. Rahman in 2021 at Sharjah Film Platform 4. It was great to see such a huge turnout but I wondered why wasn’t there a similar turnout for the screenings. Perhaps that edition should’ve included films scored by A.R. Rahman in the line up.

With six editions in five years, Sharjah Film Platform does not appear to have made its mark with local audiences, including filmmakers and artists.

Maybe one of the reasons is because it doesn’t have a fixed month and is still not recognised enough like other regular Sharjah Art Foundation, the Sharjah Biennial, March Meetings, Focal Point, Vantage Point Sharjah and the annual winter and summer scheduled exhibitions. Sharjah Film Platform has been held in four different months - January, October, November and December.

Maybe the films selected don’t speak to local audiences, most of which are selected from an open call or nominated by selected individuals.

The festival line up also doesn’t get announced early enough, this year’s program and schedule appeared on Sharjah Art Foundation’s website less than a week before the festival began. 

Many associate film festivals to be glitzy events, and thankfully Sharjah Film Platform is not that, and the tickets are very affordable (AED 15 / USD 4 per screening). But if regular filmgoers aren’t attending, why aren’t filmmakers and artists in the UAE showing up? Especially young and emerging filmmakers and artists who would benefit from watching the kind of films shown at this festival and to meet other filmmakers and artists. 

It’s never been clear to me what Sharjah Film Platform is trying to achieve apart from catering to filmmakers from abroad who are also the key audience.


This year I made time to watch:

- Six new films

  • Animalia (Sofia Alaoui)

  • The Echo (Tatiana Huezo)

  • Feet in Water, Head on Fire (Terra Long) + post screening discussion and Q&A

  • Inshallah a Boy (Amjad Al-Rasheed)

  • Machtat (Sonia Ben Slama) + post screening discussion and Q&A

  • Tiger Stripes (Amanda Nell Eu)

I was glad the festival finally included post screening discussions, especially since past editions had the filmmakers present but were never introduced to the audience before or after the screenings.


- Three films by Safi Faye (1943-2023), this year’s Director in Focus (For the first edition I had suggested and programmed three films by Yousef Chahine, and glad to see a focus on renowned directors returned in 2021 with Michel Khleifi and Moufida Tlatli in 2022.)

  • Letter From My Village / Kaddu Beykat (Safi Faye, 1976)

  • Come and Work / Fad'jal (Safi Faye, 1979)

  • I, Your Mother / Man Sa Yay (Safi Faye, 1980)



- I also attended one of a few talks in the line up, The Cinema of Safi Faye: Colonial Legacies, Exile and (Be)longing with Akosua Adoma Owusu (Filmmaker) and Yasmina Price (Scholar, critic, writer and curator) which was insightful and it made me wish Akosua and/or Yasmina had also introduced each of the 3 films to contextualise them even more.


This year’s venues included Mirage City Cinema, Sharjah Institute for Theatrical Arts and Vox Cinemas in City Centre Al Zahia mall. I was sad there were no screenings in Al Hamra Cinema.  

Goodbye Julia (Mohamad Kordofani) was the opening film, but I watched it at Vox Cinemas in Dubai in the same week because the film was released in cinemas across the UAE on December 14.

Tatiana Hue’s The Echo was the standout for me. A lovely film about growing up and intergenerational family bonds in a Mexican rural village, El Eco. Life isn’t easy in the village, hard work on the land and at home, the young taking on adult roles and responsibilities earlier than they should. Caring for the elderly, the scenes with the young siblings and their aged grandmother is one of the most tender I’ve seen this year, and teaching younger children in school. Teenage dreams and ambitions that can only be pursued and fulfilled outside the village. An uncertain future lies ahead that includes climate change. Intimate and moving.


I also liked Sofia Alaoui’s Animalia, a sci-fi set in Morocco about class and faith. Itto who is heavily pregnant and comes from a rural Berber background (played by Oumaima Barid, who at times reminded me of Anya Taylor-Joy) is alone in the family mansion after her upper class husband and his family leave for a family matter.

An unidentified disaster is taking place and Itto has to travel across the country to join her husband for safety and shelter. The looming disaster doesn’t entail loud explosions, but something transcendental. In her search for safety, Itto is confronted by patriarchal obstacles, class divides and the supernatural. A search that leads to a spiritual awakening. The film pairs well with Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia.

Amjad Al-Rasheed’s Inshallah a Boy is a well crafted thriller and a social commentary set in Jordan about Islamic inheritance laws that favours male relatives. Navigating a patriarchal society, Nawal (Mouna Hawa) and her daughter cannot claim the house as their own after Nawal’s husband dies. Her scheme to hold on to the house from her brother-in-law who wants it sell it to share the inheritance money with the rest of the family reflects a wider issue faced by many women in similar situations.
Gripping and hopeful. 

 
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