Eleven films, an unprecedented number, are going head-to-head in the Muhr Emirati competition at Dubai International Film Festival tomorrow. The best feature will win Dh75,000, the best short will win Dh50,000 and the best director will win Dh20,000.
Four of the competing directors are women, including Aisha Al Zaabi, 22, who won best film last year. She said that the Emirati women of today are capable of being ministers, doctors, lawyers and anything else they desire.
“It’s enough that the leaders have faith in women to do as much as men do. There’s no difference between us,” she said.
Aisha won the 2014 competition with her horror-thriller, The Other Dimension. This year, she’s participating with a 17-minute, Arabic-language children’s adventure, My Dear Home With Love, about a girl called Fatima. The 9-year-old moves to a new house with her family but aches for her old one. When she returns, she stumbles upon a shocking discovery.
“My first film was a cinematic achievement, but the everyday movie-watcher didn’t like it. There’s a difference between a festival film and a film for mass audiences. This time, I wanted to combine those two things. Even my own mother told me, ‘Your first film, I didn’t like it. This one, I like,’” said Aisha.
Currently in her last year at Abu Dhabi Women’s College, her cinematography is deliberately designed to satiate the viewer’s curiosity. She doesn’t want them to get bored.
“We have directors who stay on one scene too long; it’s not wrong, but the audience doesn’t like that. They want to see the scene from every angle. The audience is nosy — they want to know what’s happening in this corner and that. I like to bring them into the movie, so they feel like they’re living the moment,” she said.
Sarra’a Al Shehhi, 25, is a first-time participant in the competition. She’s a second-year graduate student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and created her 6-minute English-language film, Open Wound, as a university project. It depicts an Iranian girl who is molested by her uncle as a child and takes up boxing in the aftermath.
Sarra’a combined inspiration from studying Emarati women in sports, particularly footballer Jalila Al Nuaimi, and a dream she had of a child who was raped. The film, to her, is about celebrating the power of women.
“It’s an open wound — you’re exposed because you have such a huge pain in your life, like the character who was molested. It’s celebrating victims who refuse to be victims and try to pick themselves up every day,” she said.
Sarra’a added that global cinema would benefit from stronger representation.
“We need to see the woman’s side of the story. Not just ‘that’s a woman, and she’s in the movie’. We need to see her point of view. We need to see more depth. It’s easy for people not to see a woman’s world, when you’re used to seeing one type of film. Not just in the UAE, in the world — we are missing women’s roles,” she said.
In the UAE, Aisha said, the understanding of cinema as a whole has matured, which she believed was reflected in the rising number of Muhr Emirati competitors. Last year, there were eight.
“Before, if a director showed his work to a hundred people in a theatre, they would mock it. Now it’s different. Everyone watches films and understands the true meaning of cinema,” she said.
“Everyone wants to be a director, a producer, a writer. The numbers are growing. I was sitting in the audience [at the Muhr film screenings] yesterday, and one guy said, “I need to write.” Another said, “I need to start filming.” Hopefully, we’re giving them motivation to create, to shoot, to direct film.”
Amna Al Nowais is competing with her 9-minute non-fiction film, Omnia, about a woman who struggles with memories of circumcision. Manal Ali Bin Amro is competing with a 14-minute film about the deaf daughter of a baker who deals with abuse and apathy in her home. Both entries are in Arabic.
For a full list of competitors, visit diff.ae.
