In August 2017, Belgian artist Francis Alys was stuck between checkpoints in Iraq. He was travelling back from Mosul, where he was making the film Children's Games #19: Haram Football about children living under ISIS restrictions, who had devised a game of football that did not involve a ball. As he waited at the Peshmerga checkpoint in the village of Nerkzlia, he passed the time by filming children who lived in the rocky, hilly area.
"It was by chance," Alys says, of the encounter that resulted in Sandlines, an hour-long feature film that was released this year. "It's a place that's very protected, and brought up a lot of questions. How much do you want to be connected to the rest of the world? It means gains, but also losses."
In May 2018, Alys returned with the intention of making a short film about the children drawing lines in the sand – a caricature of the Sykes-Picot line that bisected the region in 1916. But he was struck by how little the children knew about the history of Iraq, despite having lived through the country's wars. In the opening sequence of the film a boy says he has never heard of Iraq. He lives "here", he says, in Nerkzlia.
Alys took this as an artistic opportunity. Together with the children, he and his co-director, Julien Devaux, recreated Iraq's history, teaching the children as they performed it, to give them some ownership over their past. "The game was to set minimal instructions, in terms of different scenes we wanted to re-enact, and let the children find their own way of acting it; to let them appropriate those historical figures and invent their own version of the story," explains Alys, who is now touring the film at festivals, including the Vienna International Film Festival, which runs until Sunday.
“One thing I found out very quickly is that there are many different versions of events, and each of them with some element of truth. It was not for me to be the authority. It was for them to give their own reading, and create a sort of parody of the adult world.”
One thing I found out very quickly is that there are many different versions of events, and each of them with some element of truth. It was not for me to be the authority. It was for them to give their own reading, and create a sort of parody of the adult world
Deliberately homespun costumes, such as a fat, flimsily affixed moustache for Saddam Hussein, give the performances a vaudevillian character. A game of leapfrog, in which the children tumble over each another, reflects the constant change of Iraqi leadership. The children smile and giggle, but it would be inaccurate to say they break character. They are working not in the categories of documentary or fiction, but in the gentle, sacred space of make-believe.
Adults are absent throughout the film, as are most built structures: it’s a vista of rolling hillsides, bleating farm animals and good-natured children in floppy shoes and with dusty faces.
Animals play the role almost of a conscience, punctuating scenes with instinctive reactions. One of the most stunning scenes takes place before the historical narrative begins, when two young shepherds call to their animals in shrill, repeated sounds, leading them across the hillsides.
"In the beginning the kids wanted to impress me," says Alys. "And the way they wanted to impress me was to show me that they were good shepherds.
“These children are little adults. They look after 45 to 60 sheep on their own. They’re up there in the desert with their sheep, they come back around three [in the afternoon], which is when we would start filming, with the same number of sheep. So to see these little adults embody these historical figures suited their nature.”
The film grows in complexity as it continues. The facade of fiction drops and the making of the film becomes part of it. In a scene where Saddam Hussein puts on a gas mask to ward against the American invasion – two boys in stars-and-stripes trousers who stir up sand with what appear to be leaf blowers – the young actor is asked to shoot the take again.
The light is growing dark, and Devaux warns he has only four minutes of battery left. Implacably, the boy allows the directors to rearrange his costume, and heads off into the distance to reshoot.
Alys has lived in Mexico City since 1986, and was part of its flourishing of the art scene in the 1990s. Since then he has become a major international artist, and will represent Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 2022.
But he has long roots in the Arab region, particularly through collaborations with the Ruya Foundation for contemporary culture in Iraq, with which he produced Sandlines. He has made versions of his Children's Games series – short films in which he documents playground games – in Iraq, Jordan, and Afghanistan, and in 2017 was part of the Iraqi Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
The instability of the region, it seems, provides him with the kinds of scenarios that his work thrills to: the informal systems that arise – or even outpace – institutional ones, such as the games that pass on from one generation to the next, despite epochal shifts such as war, regime change and migration.
Beyond the realm of what is taught in schools, written in books, or available on Google lie cultural continuities that are often more durable and profound.
Sandlines tests this meeting of the informal and the formal, matching the artist's and the children's limited understanding of the official Iraqi history with their caricatured version of events. In one scene, the children gather on the squalid steps of a breeze block house, as a puppet show enacts the Ba'athist coup that toppled the monarchy.
They boo, hiss and laugh at the characters that bob across the makeshift stage of fabric draped over a rusted metal bed. If there is a mournful edge to Sandlines, it is the adults off-screen, who have as much control over the shifting borders as do their children, giggling at the absurdity of it. They are in history, but what does history matter to villagers outside of Mosul who only want to live in peace?
In the film, ISIS is represented as an enormous shadow moving across the land, as a young girl in a long printed dress runs screaming. ISIS propaganda sings, “We’ve broken Sykes-Picot”.
The narrator, a young girl, explains the destruction. There is a pause in the film when it seems unsure of where to go next: Iraq's future is dangerously unclear. But Sandlines treats the febrile state of affairs as a cause for optimism. As the boys play, the girls look on from a hilltop, utterly unimpressed. The film ends with the girls using a mobile phone to shoot their own footage, trailing a new line of sand on to the earth.
“In a century where events have been quite cyclical and tragically repeating themselves, we tried to introduce a little bit of hope,” says Alys. “The game of leapfrog is meant to represent the cyclical nature of the history, and the girls are meant to take us out of there, and bring us a more hopeful future. That’s what I would like people to see. Iraqi women have been absent from Iraqi history. It’s time for them to intervene and take the lead.
"It's the only way I see to stop the cycle," Alys says, adding "I could say that about many places."
The Vienna International Film Festival runs until Sunday
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FIXTURES
All kick-off times 10.45pm UAE ( 4 GMT) unless stated
Tuesday
Sevilla v Maribor
Spartak Moscow v Liverpool
Manchester City v Shakhtar Donetsk
Napoli v Feyenoord
Besiktas v RB Leipzig
Monaco v Porto
Apoel Nicosia v Tottenham Hotspur
Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid
Wednesday
Basel v Benfica
CSKA Moscow Manchester United
Paris Saint-Germain v Bayern Munich
Anderlecht v Celtic
Qarabag v Roma (8pm)
Atletico Madrid v Chelsea
Juventus v Olympiakos
Sporting Lisbon v Barcelona
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Arabian Gulf Cup FINAL
Al Nasr 2
(Negredo 1, Tozo 50)
Shabab Al Ahli 1
(Jaber 13)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The 12 Syrian entities delisted by UK
Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Defence
General Intelligence Directorate
Air Force Intelligence Agency
Political Security Directorate
Syrian National Security Bureau
Military Intelligence Directorate
Army Supply Bureau
General Organisation of Radio and TV
Al Watan newspaper
Cham Press TV
Sama TV
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
The Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index
The Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index
Mazen Abukhater, principal and actuary at global consultancy Mercer, Middle East, says the company’s Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index - which benchmarks 34 pension schemes across the globe to assess their adequacy, sustainability and integrity - included Saudi Arabia for the first time this year to offer a glimpse into the region.
The index highlighted fundamental issues for all 34 countries, such as a rapid ageing population and a low growth / low interest environment putting pressure on expected returns. It also highlighted the increasing popularity around the world of defined contribution schemes.
“Average life expectancy has been increasing by about three years every 10 years. Someone born in 1947 is expected to live until 85 whereas someone born in 2007 is expected to live to 103,” Mr Abukhater told the Mena Pensions Conference.
“Are our systems equipped to handle these kind of life expectancies in the future? If so many people retire at 60, they are going to be in retirement for 43 years – so we need to adapt our retirement age to our changing life expectancy.”
Saudi Arabia came in the middle of Mercer’s ranking with a score of 58.9. The report said the country's index could be raised by improving the minimum level of support for the poorest aged individuals and increasing the labour force participation rate at older ages as life expectancies rise.
Mr Abukhater said the challenges of an ageing population, increased life expectancy and some individuals relying solely on their government for financial support in their retirement years will put the system under strain.
“To relieve that pressure, governments need to consider whether it is time to switch to a defined contribution scheme so that individuals can supplement their own future with the help of government support,” he said.
Brief scores:
Barcelona 3
Pique 38', Messi 51 (pen), Suarez 82'
Rayo Vallecano 1
De Tomas Gomez 24'
BELGIUM%20SQUAD
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Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Results
5pm: Al Falah – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,200m; Winner: Bshara, Richard Mullen (jockey), Salem Al Ketbi (trainer)
5.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup – Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: AF Musannef, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
6pm: Al Dhafra – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: AF Mualami, Antonio Fresu, Abubakar Daud
6.30pm: Al Khaleej Al Arabi – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Hawafez, Adrie de Vries, Abubakar Daud
7pm: Al Mafraq – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: JAP Almahfuz, Royston Ffrench, Irfan Ellahi
7.30pm: Al Samha – Handicap (TB) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m; Winner: Celestial Spheres, Patrick Cosgrave, Ismail Mohammed
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20SAMSUNG%20GALAXY%20Z%20FLIP%204
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More on Quran memorisation:
Ferrari
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Michael%20Mann%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Adam%20Driver%2C%20Penelope%20Cruz%2C%20Shailene%20Woodley%2C%20Patrick%20Dempsey%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
'Falling%20for%20Christmas'
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Janeen%20Damian%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EStars%3A%20Lindsay%20Lohan%2C%20Chord%20Overstreet%2C%20Jack%20Wagner%2C%20Aliana%20Lohan%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3ERating%3A%201%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
INDIA'S%20TOP%20INFLUENCERS
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Major honours
ARSENAL
BARCELONA
- La Liga - 2013
- Copa del Rey - 2012
- Fifa Club World Cup - 2011
CHELSEA
- Premier League - 2015, 2017
- FA Cup - 2018
- League Cup - 2015
SPAIN
- World Cup - 2010
- European Championship - 2008, 2012
WITHIN%20SAND
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DMZ facts
- The DMZ was created as a buffer after the 1950-53 Korean War.
- It runs 248 kilometers across the Korean Peninsula and is 4km wide.
- The zone is jointly overseen by the US-led United Nations Command and North Korea.
- It is littered with an estimated 2 million mines, tank traps, razor wire fences and guard posts.
- Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un met at a building in Panmunjom, where an armistice was signed to stop the Korean War.
- Panmunjom is 52km north of the Korean capital Seoul and 147km south of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
- Former US president Bill Clinton visited Panmunjom in 1993, while Ronald Reagan visited the DMZ in 1983, George W. Bush in 2002 and Barack Obama visited a nearby military camp in 2012.
- Mr Trump planned to visit in November 2017, but heavy fog that prevented his helicopter from landing.
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
if you go
The flights
Air Astana flies direct from Dubai to Almaty from Dh2,440 per person return, and to Astana (via Almaty) from Dh2,930 return, both including taxes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Almaty cost from Dh1,944 per night including taxes; and in Astana the new Ritz-Carlton Astana (www.marriott) costs from Dh1,325; alternatively, the new St Regis Astana costs from Dh1,458 per night including taxes.
When to visit
March-May and September-November
Visas
Citizens of many countries, including the UAE do not need a visa to enter Kazakhstan for up to 30 days. Contact the nearest Kazakhstan embassy or consulate.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company%20profile
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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
Kibsons%20Cares
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERecycling%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fstrong%3EAny%20time%20you%20receive%20a%20Kibsons%20order%2C%20you%20can%20return%20your%20cardboard%20box%20to%20the%20drivers.%20They%E2%80%99ll%20be%20happy%20to%20take%20it%20off%20your%20hands%20and%20ensure%20it%20gets%20reused%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EKind%20to%20health%20and%20planet%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3Cbr%3ESolar%20%E2%80%93%2025-50%25%20of%20electricity%20saved%3Cbr%3EWater%20%E2%80%93%2075%25%20of%20water%20reused%3Cbr%3EBiofuel%20%E2%80%93%20Kibsons%20fleet%20to%20get%2020%25%20more%20mileage%20per%20litre%20with%20biofuel%20additives%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ESustainable%20grocery%20shopping%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3Cbr%3ENo%20antibiotics%3Cbr%3ENo%20added%20hormones%3Cbr%3ENo%20GMO%3Cbr%3ENo%20preservatives%3Cbr%3EMSG%20free%3Cbr%3E100%25%20natural%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Ukraine 2 (Yaremchuk 06', Yarmolenko 27')
Portugal 1 (Ronaldo 72' pen)
About Tenderd
Started: May 2018
Founder: Arjun Mohan
Based: Dubai
Size: 23 employees
Funding: Raised $5.8m in a seed fund round in December 2018. Backers include Y Combinator, Beco Capital, Venturesouq, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Paul Buchheit, Justin Mateen, Matt Mickiewicz, SOMA, Dynamo and Global Founders Capital
RESULT
Manchester United 2 Burnley 2
Man United: Lingard (53', 90' 1)
Burnley: Barnes (3'), Defour (36')
Man of the Match: Jesse Lingard (Manchester United)
Company%C2%A0profile
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LA LIGA FIXTURES
Thursday (All UAE kick-off times)
Sevilla v Real Betis (midnight)
Friday
Granada v Real Betis (9.30pm)
Valencia v Levante (midnight)
Saturday
Espanyol v Alaves (4pm)
Celta Vigo v Villarreal (7pm)
Leganes v Real Valladolid (9.30pm)
Mallorca v Barcelona (midnight)
Sunday
Atletic Bilbao v Atletico Madrid (4pm)
Real Madrid v Eibar (9.30pm)
Real Sociedad v Osasuna (midnight)
