Beirut Hosts Pan-Arab Contemporary Arts Festival
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www.dailystar.com.lb One of the charms of Meeting Points, the pan-Arab contemporary arts festival that opened last week in Beirut, is the sheer range of media it includes within its ambit. Film buffs are particularly well served, since the festival has two distinct cinema components. The official screening program consists of five feature-length documentaries and shorts drawn from Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Syria. Ali Essafi's "Ouarzazate Movie," from 2001, is a wry look at life in the southern Moroccan town that was discovered by international film crews in search of scenic desert locations, and hence became a cog in the global film production machine. Essafi's camera moves from the visiting foreign film crews to the local population that provides services and seeks work from them. North African film culture is considered from a different, albeit hilarious, angle with Najib Belkadhi's "VHS-Kahouchha," from 2006. Moncef Kahloucha lives in Kazmet - a working-class quarter in the Tunisian city of Sousse. A housepainter by trade, Kahloucha's passion is filmmaking. He writes, directs, produces and stars in his productions. His collaborator is a fellow with a Panasonic VHS camera who films weddings for a living. His co-stars are his relatives, friends and neighbors. Sandra Madi's "Full Bloom," from 2006, is another documentary portrait from the margins, this time of Jordan. Faraj Darwish was born in Jordan's Al-Baqaa Palestinian refugee camp. In 2004, at the age of 21, he won the Arab boxing-championship title in Algeria and since then he has dreamed of competing in the Olympics. Unfortunately, in 2006 the Jordanian Boxing Federation banned him from competing for the Hashemite Kingdom because he refused to fight an Israeli boxer in an international match. Rounding out the projection schedule are a pair of shorts by Syrian filmmaking collaborators Mohammad al-Roumi and Meyyar al-Roumi. Mohammad al-Roumi's "Voyage to the End of the World," from 2006, is a quiet contemplation of human relations set against some splendid scenery. It takes up the relationship of Umm Hassan and Umm Ali, two middle-aged women from the village of Tell Mitai on the Mediterranean coast. Umm Hassan's son has taken a post at a public school in Tell Banat, on the Iraqi border, and she tries to convince Umm Ali to make the long train trip with her. A sister piece of sorts, Meyyar al-Roumi's "Rabia's Journey," from 2006, takes a cross-country taxi ride as its subject - this one involving a young school teacher who's returning to his hometown to introduce his fiancée Rabia to his mother. During the long drive, an understated tension crackles between the teacher and the young taxi driver, who can't take his eyes off the pretty Rabia.
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Amman Office / Agents
Mr. Motaz Othman
P.O. Box 841113 Amman 111180
Amman – Jordan
Mobile : +962 785 557 778,
Tel: +962 6 4618615, Fax:+962 6 4618613, E-mail: itmamman@tcph.org |
عمان
السيد معتز عثمان
ص.ب 841113
عمان – المملكة الأردنية الهاشمية
لتغطية الدول التالية: سوريا، الأردن،
لبنان، السعودية والعرا ق |
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