Dubai: Glossy thrillers with stars including Matt Damon, George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Richard Gere and period-dramas with Keira Knightley and Frieda Pinto will be highlight of this year's Abu Dhabi Film festival (ADFF).
To be held at the Abu Dhabi Theatre from October 13, the ten-day event is tipped to attract some of the biggest names from the movie business.
To see the full schedule click here
While festival organisers are tight-lipped about the red-carpet appearances, with festival director Peter Scarlet telling the press, "We are not in the business of creating false hopes," the event has often seen stars across the spectrum hitting the capital to talk up their films.
In the past, A-listers such as Uma Thurman, Adrien Brody, Clive Owen, Frieda Pinto and Yusra have lit up the festival.
But in an interview with tabloid! ahead of the press conference, he hinted at two stars.
"I'll give you two names. Viggo Mortensen has just made this film called A Dangerous Method where he plays Sigmund Freud and Woody Harrelson has just given the performance of his life in a film called Rampart. Both films are showing this year and I think both actors will be getting a lot of awards. There is a good chance we will be seeing them in Abu Dhabi."
"Our festival is about celebration of cinema ... It opens your eyes to a world that you have never been to," said Scarlet at the press conference before revealing the line up of films. The opening gala will be Philippe Falardeau's Monsieur Lahzar.
The Canadian film won the Toronto International Film Festival's best Canadian feature category last weekend. Epidemic thriller Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh of Erin Brokovich fame, will be showcased at ADFF, which is now celebrating its fifth year. An A-list ensemble cast including Maron Cotillard, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet head the flick.
Co-produced by Abu Dhabi's Imagenation, Contagion, along with home-grown feature Sea Shadow directed by acclaimed Emirati director Nawaf Al Janahi and Richard Gere's spy-drama The Double will be screened during the festival. The latter two local productions are world premieres.
The Double, which marks the directorial debut of Michael Brandt, will see the return of Gere in a gritty role as a retired CIA operative who comes out of retirement to track down an assassin. A Soviet spy is also thrown in for good measure.
Political thriller The Ides Of March, which enjoyed its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, will also head to the UAE shores. It's directed by George Clooney, who also plays the pivotal role of a Democratic candidate for American president while Ryan Gosling acts as the naïve and optimistic senior adviser to his campaign.
It's not just glossy thrillers that will enjoy its outing at this year's ADFF. As mentioned by Scarlett, period drama A Dangerous Method featuring British actress Keira Knightley as the tortured Russian patient of Dr Carl Jung will also make its rounds. Based on the London Play titled The Talking Cure'and on the book by John Kerr A Most Dangerous Method, Knightley's performance has been regarded as the perfect Oscar-bait.
Slumdog Millionaire actress Frieda Pinto will play a peasant girl in love epic Trishna. Shot in Mumbai and Rajashthan, the love story between a wealthy London hotelier (Riz Ahmed) and poor rural girl (Pinto) is versatile director Michael Winterbottom's take on Thomas Hardy's classic Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Independent filmmaker Todd Solondz taps into the popular manchild comedies genre (think Knocked-Up and The 40-Year-old-Virgin) with his comedy Dark Horse.
The going is equally good in the documentary department. Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese charts the life of Beatle in George Harrison: Living In The Material World. It boasts of never-before-seen footage from Harrison's childhood and his years as a Beatle.
Closer to home, Egyptian documakers Ayten Amin, Amr Salama and Tamer Ezzat document the Tahrir Square demonstrations in Egypt and the end of president Hosni Mubarak's regime through a demonstrator's point of view in Tahrir 2011: The Good, The Bad and The Politician.
Animation flick Chicken With Plums by festival favourite director Marjane Satrapi will bring together some of France's biggest stars including Mathieu Amalric and Maria De Medeiros.
The repertoire is not as rich when it comes to Bollywood this year. Unlike 2009's line-up, which saw stars such Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta and music composer A R Rahman walking the red-carpet for the world premiere of their underwater-adventure Blue, it's slim pickings this year.
There's no sign of lavish musicals. Marathi film The Temple directed by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni starring acclaimed actors Nana Patekar and Sonali Kulkarni will be screened. Satyajit Ray's Charulata, based on Indian poet Late Rabindranath Tagore's novella The Broken Nest, will be unveiled to mark the 150th birth anniversary of the acclaimed Bengali poet. In similar vein, Arab author Naguib Mahfouz - who became the first author in his region to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature - will also be recognised. Films that were based on his works, including Omar Sharif-starrer The Beginning And The End, will be screened.
This year, the festival will also train its spotlight on Sweden and bring to focus the works of celebrated Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman. His Smiles Of A Later Summer Night and Wild Strawberries are in the list.
More than 140 films from over 40 countries will be screened during the festival.
ADFF in numbers
8 world premieres, 6 international premieres (films that have been released in their country of production but premiering in rest of the world), 35 countries represented, 86 feature films, 62 narrative features, 24 documentary features.
Short films: 94 films in competition, 5 world premieres, 8 international premieres, 24 countries represented.
Emirati films: 32 films produced in the UAE will be showcased. 45 films in Emirates Film Competiton, 25 world premieres and 1 international premiere.
Did you know?
For the first time this year, ADFF will organise open-air screenings of cinematic gems at the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr every evening except October 21. Cinema lovers can get a taste of world cinema whilst enjoying the view of landmarks such as the Shaikh Zayed Grand Mosque.
Women only
Two films will have women-only screenings -- vampire movie Moth Diary, starring British model Lily Cole, and celeb-studded shoe documentary God Save My Shoes, which looks at why shoes are a particular source of fashion obsession for so many women. The film features stars from the Black Eye Peas' Stacy Ferguson (aka Fergie) and Dita Von Teese.
Ticket info
Tickets are available at www.adff.ae with festival and elite passes from September 25 and ticket sales from September 28.
Tickets will also be available at box offices in Fairmont Bab Al Bahr, Abu Dhabi Theatre and Marina Mall starting October 3, from noon until 10pm.
Ticket prices are Dh25 (students, single screening) Dh350 (Festival pass valid for regular, gala and outdoor screenings); Dh2,500 (elite pass valid for screenings, opening night party, gala screneings, closing night party).
