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From A to B with Ali

Dubai was brought to life in Emirati filmmaker Ali Mustafa’s cinematic feature City of Life

  • By Anupa Kurian, Readers Editor
  • Published: 20:00 March 12, 2011

Dubai: Dubai - a city of paradoxes - was brought to life in Emirati filmmaker Ali Mustafa’s cinematic feature City of Life. The EAFL session was a glimpse of the journey the 29-year-old had to undertake to bring this celluloid dream into existence.

By parts heart wrenching, funny and essentially about the triumph of persistence, the script to screen saga was perhaps even more of a dramatic exercise than the movie itself.

City of Life was initially inspired by a Bollywood megastar lookalike in a suburban nightclub-cum-cafe.

Ali said: "I felt that my first film had to represent me and where I live. Someone from the ad agency that I was working with told me about the Bollywood Cafe and the Shah Rukh Khan lookalike. Here was someone walking down the streets of Karama - making a living looking like someone. Fascinating story, it was a movie, right there. Fiction is something I love ... creating something.

"But then I needed to add more to represent me ... the Emirati thread is loosely based on personal experience. And then the Western expatriate was (woven in). Dubai epitomizes connectivity, you change lives every day without knowing.

"I came up with the initial storyline (almost immediately) .... but it took me about a year (to complete)."

Following in the footsteps of the famed Hollywood director Ridley Scott, Ali began his career essentially by making commercials - it paid well and didn't take up too much time.

"Initially when I graduated from the London School of Film ... my 2004 graduation short films Under the Sun, brought me into the public eye. But, you cannot earn a living on short films. I decided to make my way up the ladder, starting as an assistant to a gaffer in the advertising (industry). Then I became the third assistant director. Finally I became assistant director."

His goal was to become a director, so after a few years as a commercial director, Ali decided to focus only on making movies.

It soon turned into an obstacle course starting with financing to getting official approval.

Ali decided to use brand advertising as a means to get the money. He needed about $5million. His first break was the Dubai Shopping Festival and its then CEO Saeed Al Naboodah. Once that came through “the Dubai Airport and the Dubai DutyFree", too agreed.

The money was in but not the approval. It took nearly one more year for that to work out. However, the audience proved to Ali that his battle had been worth it. The movie ran for weeks to full house.

He is currently working on his second feature, which he describes as, "a sober version Arab-style Hangover. It is a road movie. Like those type of genres. About a unique drive from Abu Dhabi to Beirut ... working title is A to B."

And the one following that is an “epic bio-pic from here” that he was being rather tight-lipped about. No matter what he is set to prove his own words: "In three years' time you will have a choice of at least two to three Emirati movies at the cinema every week."

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