Having spent the last two weeks working as part of its organisational team, Mohamed El-Assyouti previews the region's most talked about film event of the last few months Announced at the 60th Cannes Film Festival and since then awaited with abated breath, the first Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF, 14-19 October) is finally opening in Abu Dhabi this Sunday. Inaugural sessions will take place at the luxury Hotel Emirates Palace, and the programme includes 81 screenings as well as four panels in the first annual convention of the Film Financing Circle (FFC) -- a much anticipated initiative to bring together filmmakers and film financiers from all over the world. But knowing how hyped up it's been, how significant is the event for the region in actual fact? Clearly, tremendous amounts of money, energy and time have been invested in it over three and a half months, but whether or not they will pay off has yet to be seen. Much of the hype has to do with the fact that the festival is part of the UAE capital's initiative to become a centre of culture in the region; at the disposal of the Abu Dhabi Authority of Culture and Heritage (ADACH), presided over by chairman Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoun Al-Nahyan and director general Mohamed Khalaf Al-Mazrouie, are abundant resources dedicated to this aim. With Al-Mazrouie at the helm, Abu Dhabi established a Film Commission, a Film School (a project undertaken in collaboration with the New York Film Academy, it is due to open in January 2008) and a Film Fund (according to Variety, one deal signed with Warner Brothers in September in the framework of the latter involved US$500 million for production and the same sum for video games, a theme park and Arabic- speaking productions for regional distribution). Even the Louvre and the Guggenheim are to have branches in Abu Dhabi. A team of equally exciting names has been brought into the fray, with Pyramedia CEO Nashwa Al-Ruwaini, an Egyptian TV presenter with 18 years' experience named the Arab world's 20th most powerful business woman by FORBES, after establishing two satellite channels in Abu Dhabi, one in English and one in Arabic, acting as executive director. The festival director is the American impresario Jon Fitzgerald, who over 15 years has been, among other things, co-founder and executive director of the Slamdance Film Festival, American Film Institute (AFI) festival director, and director of the 2003 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Responsible for the Arab division is the well-known Egyptian critic Samir Farid, also a festival advisor, who has published four books in this capacity, one by himself on the post-9/11 world cinema. For its part the FCC is headed by producer Adrienne Briggs, who has managed to gather 20 high-profile figures -- including Croatian producer Branko Lusting ( Black Hawk Down, Hannibal, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, Schindler's List ), senior vice president for production and acquisitions at Warner Independent Pictures Paul Federbush ( Paradise Now ), president of Relativity Media Ryan Kavanaugh ( The Pursuit of Happiness, Ghost Rider ), Indian-British independent films' executive producer Deepak Nayar ( Lost Highway, The End of Violence, Buena Vista Social Club ), Hong Kong producer Nansun Shi ( Once Upon a Time in China, A Chinese Ghost Story, Infernal Affairs ), BBC Films' head David Thompson ( Billy Elliot, Notes on a Scandal ), Egyptian president of Al-Arabia Film Production and Distribution Isaad Younis ( Muwatin wa Mukhbir wa Harami -- "A Citizen, a Police Detective and a Thief, Sahar Al-Layali -- "Staying Up", Bahib Al-Sima -- "I Love Cinema") -- to discuss High-Level Finance, Production Finance, Production" and Distribution over three days (17-19 October), with Miramax producer Harvey Weinstein -- whose work gleaned 249 Oscar nominations and 60 awards -- giving the keynote. *** Of 135 film projects submitted for the InCircle Pearl, the FCC's sizable grant, only six will be presented during the convention, one of which will be chosen. Finalists include the Emirati Fadel Al-Muhari's project entitled A Corsair's Tale, the story of a 19th-century Arabian who, after being victimised by the British East India Trading Company, becomes a pirate targeting imperial boats crossing the Arabian Gulf. There is also Indian filmmaker Soman Chainani's Love and Marriage, about the difficult romance of an Indian girl in suburbian London, Georgian director Sofie Damian's Keep Smiling -- about seven women's fierce competition in a mothers' beauty contest in Tbilisi -- and the Austrian Max Gruber's second film We Kill What We Love, about a Turkish woman investigating the murder of her sister in Vienna. The Iranian-American Kayvan Mashayekh offers Batting for Palestine, about a stone- throwing Palestinian who is recruited by a Jewish sports manager to play baseball in Texas, while John McFarlane's Friends and Money ia about a group of friends who, while getting on with their lives in New York, use satellite imagery to discover a hidden treasure in what is now Dubai. MIEFF has two official competitions: a feature film competition (open to fiction, documentary and animation), and a short film competition. In the first there are 12 fiction and six documentary screenings including the Lebanese fiction Sukar Banat (Caramel) directed by Nadine Labaki and the Egyptian documentary Salata Baladi (House Salad) directed by Nadia Kamel. Competition highlights include the American James C Strouse's Grace is Gone, about the father of two girls whose mother has died in Iraq. The Mexican Rodrigo Plà's La Zona (The Zone, winner of the prestigious Luigi De Laurnetiis award at Venice Film Festival and the FIPRESCI International Critics Award at the Toronto Film Festival) takes place in a dystopia of the rich which, fencing off the poverty outside, has created draconian laws to punish intruders, while the Iranian Marjane Satrapi and the French Vincent Paronnaud's animation feature Persepolis -- one of the highlights of the Cannes Film Festival -- is based on Satrapi's best-selling autobiographical comics in which she recalls the oppression she suffered as a child and adolescent in mulla- controlled Iran. Except for veteran director Michael Apted's The Power of the Game -- a documentary on the solidarity-inducing power of football and how it helps eradicate class and national barriers -- all the other 17 films in the official features competition are by first- or second-time directors. The shorts competition has 20 films, including the Egyptian Mahmoud Soliman's acclaimed Ahmar wa Azraq (Red and Blue), about one couple's stressful experience of a pregnancy test. The feature film competition jury is made up of General Director and Head of the Executive Board of Syrian National Film Organisation and the President of the Damascus International Film Festival Mohamed Al-Ahmad, Tunisian producer Naguib Ayad, producer and documentary filmmaker Ann Bernier, Director of the Film Department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Ian Birnie, Swiss documentary filmmaker Christian Frei ( War Photographer ), Chief Editor of Moving Pictures magazine Elliot V Kotek and production, marketing and promotion expert Claudia M Landsberger. The short films competition jury members are Short Film and Special Projects Programmer of the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles Andrew P Crane, Egyptian producer and documentary filmmaker Marianne Khoury, American director E Elias Merhige ( Begotten, Shadow of the Vampire, Suspect Zero ), playwright, screen writer and head of Emirates Channel Jamal Salem and Swiss cinematographer Ueli Steiger ( Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow ). Feature film awards will be Black Pearls. Since the festival hosts mainly younger directors, Black Pearl recipients will also have financial backing from the festival for their next project; similar rewards await the short film competition winners. According to Al-Ruwaini, through such "attempts to rewrite the rules when it comes to supporting emerging filmmakers from around the world", as Variety puts it, MEIFF will beget its own clique of film people. *** Other highlights include six "Special Presentations", opening with Joe Wright's screen adaptation of Ian McKewan's celebrated novel Atonement, which also opened the Venice Film Festival: Brian De Palma's pseudo-documentary Redacted, winner of Venice's Silver Lion for Best Director last month; Todd Haynes' alternative biopic I'm Not There, co- winner of Venice's Jury Prize; Claude Lelouch's latest, Roman de Gare (Crossed Tracks) which premiered at Cannes; Gavin Hood's Rendition ; and writer director Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah, also premiered at Venice's competition last month, on the closing night. Four Venice competition entries, in other words: this, it is generally believed, is only natural in the light of the tender age of the festival; nothing short of a miracle could have secured world premiers. Still, Al-Ruwaini says the decision to hold the festival in mid-October was intended to avoid overlap with major festivals like Cannes and Venice, and to situate MEIFF in between minor ones like Toronto and Rome, with which it is poised to compete. Nor is she particularly concerned about MEIFF coinciding with Eid Al-Fitr, which might prevent Muslims from attending: "There are over 200 nationalities in the UAE. You never know who will be coming to the festival. In fact, we worked very hard over the past months to make it happen. Now we have to wait and see." Al-Ruwaini explains that it is only natural that American productions and co-productions should have the lion's share of screenings: it is a worldwide phenomena especially today for international festivals to woo the Americans, "screening even big- budget blockbusters", because this ensures that the stars will come along with their films and hence generate media attention and high audience turnout. What about the FCC, whose participants are mostly American producers and financiers, generating a sort of partnership with America. "Why not?" Al-Ruwaini asks rhetorically. "Everybody wants to go to Hollywood. Look at Bollywood. Any place that seeks to be a centre of film production will aspire to having 'wood' added to its name." For the last few weeks a rumour had made the rounds that MEIFF was going to be the first Arab festival to screen an Israeli film, namely Bikur Ha Tizmoret (The Band's Visit, 2007) directed by Eran Kolirin, which received the Cannes Festival Coup de Coeur Un Certain Regard award. The filmmakers were interested in screening their film at Abu Dhabi just like they were eager to show it at Cannes and will likely offer it to Cairo, Al-Ruwaini says: "Although the filmmakers give in their film a message of peace and co-existence, which is a laudable thing, it was not among the films MEIFF's selection committee chose. We have a very strong slate lined up." Instead of Israel, courtesy of MEIFF's consultant Farid, the festival is to screen dozens of feature and short films from the Arab world in a section entitled Middle East Spotlight and the retrospective sections the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Films and Arab Women Directors. These will show: the first Saudi film Dhilal Al-Samt (Shadow of Silence, 2006) directed by Abdullah Al-Muheisen, about a remote mental institute in the middle of the desert where Arab intellectuals and activists are brainwashed; the first Omani film Al-Boom (The Dawn, 2006) directed by Khalid Al-Zadjali, about a society of fishermen whose livelihood is being sabotaged by a corrupt investor, forcing them to emigrate to the capital; the banned Kuwait feature-length documentary Indama Takalam Al-Shaab (When the People Spoke, 2007) directed by Amer Al-Zuhairi, about the development or lack thereof of women's political rights in Kuwait; the first Kuwaiti and GCC feature film Bas Ya Bahr (The Cruel Sea, 1972) directed by Khalid Al-Siddiq; the first Bahraini feature Al-Haggiz (The Barrier, 1990) directed by Bassam Al-Thawadi; the second Emirati feature Jumaa wal Bahr (Jumaa and the Sea, 2007) directed by Hani Al-Shaibany, who had also directed the UAE's first feature Hilm (Dream, 2005). Arab feature films also include the Moroccan Farida Bourqia's Tareeq Al-Ayyalat (Women on the Road, 2006), the Moroccan Keid Al-Nisaa (Women's Ruses, 1999) directed by Farida Benlyazid, the Syrian Ruaa Halima (Dreamy Visions, 2003) directed by Waha Al-Raheb, the Iraqi Kurd Shawkat Amin Korki's Parinawa la Ghobar (Crossing the Dust, 2006), about two Kurdish resistance fighters looking after a five-year-old Iraqi called Saddam while the US invades Iraq in 2003, the Tunisian Selma Baccar's Habiba M'sika (Dance of Fire, 1995), and the Egyptian classic Layla Al-Badawiya (Layla, the Bedouin, 1937) directed by Bahiga Hafiz -- screened on the occasion of the centennial of Egyptian cinema. Short films from Egypt, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be also screened. MEIFF has a section dedicated to Indian cinema, showcasing four films including: Awaara (Vagabond, 1951) a classic produced, directed and starring Raj Kapoor; Mughal E Azam (The Great Mughal, 1960) produced, co-written and directed by Kairmuddin Asif, which was one of the most expensive productions of its time and took nine years to complete; and Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear (2007) starring Amitabh Bachchan. There is a special section dedicated to Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura on his 75th anniversary screening his Flamenco (1995), and another in memoriam of the late Senegalese novelist and film director Ousmane Semb ne, the father of African cinema, screening his Xala (Impotence, 1974).
