Entertainment | Film & Cinema
DIFF brings award-winning films
This year's Dubai International Film Festival offers films that have wowed audiences and industry juries at Cannes, Rotterdam, Berlin, Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals.
- Staff Report
- Published: 23:31 May 3, 2009
L'Enfant, Broken Flowers and Cache are just some of the films you can catch.
This year's Dubai International Film Festival offers films that have wowed audiences and industry juries at Cannes, Rotterdam, Berlin, Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals.
The award-winning films have been drawn from a variety of genres and traditions, from American independent to African contemporary, Chinese drama to German-Lebanese documentary.
An additional seven films are also on the short-list for next year's Academy Award (Oscar) nominations.
The Festival's opening gala film, Paradise Now, is making its Middle East premiere in Dubai less than 10 months after Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad swept the Berlin Film Festival awards earlier this year.
The thought-provoking film follows two Palestinian friends recruited for a strike on Israel and focuses on their last days together.
The best
In May, the Cannes Film Festival awarded major prizes to three feature films destined for Dubai - the Cannes Palme d?Or went to Belgian drama L'Enfant (The Child), the Cannes Grand Prix to American independent film Broken Flowers and its Best Director award to Michael Haneke for the taut thriller Cache (Hidden).
L'Enfant, which is also a contender for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, tells the story of a young and dysfunctional hustler who sells his baby in an adoption scam, and then sets out to try and undo his callous deed.
L'Enfant is the DIFF gala screening for Monday at the Madinat Arena and also screens at 7.15 pm on Wednesday, at Cinestar 5 at Mall of the Emirates; and at 12.45 pm on Thursday at the same venue.
Broken Flowers, the new film from celebrated American independent director Jim Jarmusch, stars Bill Murray and Julie Delpy with cameo appearances by Sharon Stone and Jessica Lange.
The critically acclaimed film sees Murray confronting both his past and present after he receives a mysterious pink letter from an anonymous former lover who informs him that he has a 19-year-old son.
The film will screened at 11.30 pm on Wednesday at the Madinat Theatre.
Cache (Hidden) and Haneke also swept last week's European Film Awards, nabbing the Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Editing, and Critics Awards.
The film follows the increasing paranoia of a middle-class European family who receive tapes of themselves along with strange, violent drawings from an unknown voyeur.
As the gifts become more personal, they appear to be the work of someone who knows the family a little too well. The film will screen at 9.30 pm on Monday at Cinestar 1 at the Mall of the Emirates.
Gu Changwei, one of China's most famous and successful cinematographers, also won the much sought-after Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival this year.
His directorial debut, Peacock (Kong Que), portrays the daily life of a family in a small town in the province of Henan, and is scheduled for three DIFF screenings.
Out of Africa
Three award-winning African films are also scheduled for multiple DIFF screenings this week, including The Hero, winner of the Best Film Award in the World Cinema Competition at Sundance.
The film tells the story of an Angola desperately trying to rebuild itself after a long civil war, and of an amputee war hero who returns home to do the same.
German-Lebanese documentary Massaker, the story of the perpetrators behind the Sabra and Chatila massacres, also received an award at the Berlinale.
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