Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, 46, has broken new ground for female Arab filmmakers, gaining her second Oscar nomination of the decade.
Her latest film, the docu-fiction hybrid Four Daughters, has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards.
This is the first time an Arab woman filmmaker has earned two Oscar nominations, after The Man Who Sold His Skin won her a nod for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 awards.
Other female Arab directors who have received Oscar nominations include the Palestinian filmmaker Farah Al Nabulsi, whose The Present was also nominated in 2021 in the Best Short Film category, and Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki, nominated for Best International Feature Film in 2019 for her third movie, Capernaum.
Male Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu Assad has been nominated twice for Best International Feature Film. His feature Paradise Now earned the honour in 2006, and Omar did the same in 2014.
While Ben Hania is the first Arab woman from the region to be nominated twice, American actress Catherine Keener, who has Lebanese roots, has been nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress, first in 1999 for Being John Malkovich, then in 2005 for Capote.
Part-Lebanese actress Salma Hayek was nominated for Best Actress in 2003 for Frida.
Ben Hania has made six feature films including Four Daughters, starting her career in 2006 with the short film Brèche.
Speaking to The National in 2023 at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of Four Daughters, she said her first Oscar nomination opened many doors, nearly all of which she chose not to go through.
“After the [Oscar] nomination I had a lot of offers to direct English-speaking films … Not a Marvel movie, but a lot of things,” Ben Hania explained.
“[They say] ‘We have this book, we have this screenwriter, and we want an Oscar-nominated director.’ So a woman, Muslim, Arabic … I cross all [the boxes]. So it was an education,” she added.
Choosing to continue with the documentary that she began in 2016 was initially met with some pushback.
“When people asked what I would do next, I’d say I’m doing a documentary in Tunisia, [and] it’s like ‘Are you crazy?’”
The film follows the family of a Tunisian mother named Olfa Hamrouni, whose two eldest daughters – Rahma and Ghofrane – ran away from home to join an extremist group in Libya.
Ben Hania recruited seasoned Tunisian actress Hend Sabry for the project, who plays Hamrouni in re-enactment sequences, and also interacts with the real-life Hamrouni to discuss the events in documentary scenes, a key aspect of the film's innovative technique.
“I was fascinated by the story of Olfa,” Ben Hania said.
“In cinema, we love people with contradictions, people with flaws. And I thought it was about time to do something about a mother-daughter relationship [and] the inheritance of trauma.”
Ben Hania's previously nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin followed the story of a Syrian refugee whose body becomes a living art piece, inspired by the story of Tim Steiner, a man who was once a tattoo parlour manager whose body was similarly transformed by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye.
Ben Hania is also the first Arab in history to be nominated in multiple categories.
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Pupils in Abu Dhabi are learning the importance of being active, eating well and leading a healthy lifestyle now and throughout adulthood, thanks to a newly launched programme 'Healthy Lifestyle'.
As part of the Healthy Lifestyle programme, specially trained coaches from City Football Schools, along with Healthpoint physicians have visited schools throughout Abu Dhabi to give fun and interactive lessons on working out regularly, making the right food choices, getting enough sleep and staying hydrated, just like their favourite footballers.
Organised by Manchester City FC and Healthpoint, Manchester City FC’s regional healthcare partner and part of Mubadala’s healthcare network, the ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ programme will visit 15 schools, meeting around 1,000 youngsters over the next five months.
Designed to give pupils all the information they need to improve their diet and fitness habits at home, at school and as they grow up, coaches from City Football Schools will work alongside teachers to lead the youngsters through a series of fun, creative and educational classes as well as activities, including playing football and other games.
Dr Mai Ahmed Al Jaber, head of public health at Healthpoint, said: “The programme has different aspects - diet, exercise, sleep and mental well-being. By having a focus on each of those and delivering information in a way that children can absorb easily it can help to address childhood obesity."
Recipe: Spirulina Coconut Brothie
Ingredients
1 tbsp Spirulina powder
1 banana
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk (full fat preferable)
1 tbsp fresh turmeric or turmeric powder
½ cup fresh spinach leaves
½ cup vegan broth
2 crushed ice cubes (optional)
Method
Blend all the ingredients together on high in a high-speed blender until smooth and creamy.
Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
The biog
First Job: Abu Dhabi Department of Petroleum in 1974
Current role: Chairperson of Al Maskari Holding since 2008
Career high: Regularly cited on Forbes list of 100 most powerful Arab Businesswomen
Achievement: Helped establish Al Maskari Medical Centre in 1969 in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region
Future plan: Will now concentrate on her charitable work
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
WHAT IS GRAPHENE?
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
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Fuel consumption, combined: 7.0L / 100km
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Jebel Ali results
2pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 50,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
Winner: AF Al Moreeb, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer)
2.30pm: Maiden (TB) Dh 60,000 (D) 1,400m
Winner: Shamikh, Ryan Curatolo, Nicholas Bachalard
3pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 64,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: One Vision, Connor Beasley, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
3.30pm: Conditions (TB) Dh 100,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Gabr, Sam Hitchcott, Doug Watson
4pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 96,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner: Just A Penny, Sam Hitchcock, Doug Watson
4.30pm: Maiden (TB) Dh 60,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Torno Subito, Sam Hitchcock, Doug Watson
5pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 76,000 (D) 1,950m
Winner: Untold Secret, Jose Santiago, Salem bin Ghadayer
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