It was one of the more unusual film-festival openings.
Sydney’s Riverside Theatres had been set up to launch the 11th edition of the Arab Film Festival Australia. The posters and canapes were there, so was the gaggle of media who shot anything that moved.
But it was the people strolling down the red carpet that distinguished the event from its counterparts.
They weren’t your usual A-list film stars and attention-seeking local celebrities – instead, the guest list consisted of an eclectic bunch of film buffs, social workers, Arab community leaders, Australian government officials and members of the public.
Watching it all with approval was the festival co-director Mouna Zaylah. She explains that the nationwide boutique festival had always been defined by its inclusive vision.
“We have never put on this event for entertainment purposes only,” she says. “Instead, it is a major cultural event. Its main purpose, from the beginning, was to raise awareness and to provide a platform for the Australian community to engage with Arab culture and, hopefully, address any misrepresentation and stereotypes.”
A travelling cultural show
Run by the Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE), the Arab Film Festival Australia is one of the country’s most high-profile ethnic film events.
It’s a travelling Arab cultural roadshow, with the festival touring Australia’s eastern seaboard. After wrapping up in Sydney on Sunday, the festival will have a three-day stint in Melbourne, beginning today, before wrapping up in the Australian capital, Canberra, on August 31.
After the first edition in 2001, the festival was held only sporadically until 2006. When ICE took over its administration, it became an annual event and followed the vision of the festival directors – the Australian-born Lebanese duo Zaylah and Fadia Aboud.
The festival has since become an established feature of the Australian cultural calendar.
“It has been growing each year and we are glad that is connecting with the wider Australian community,” says Zaylah. “Not only that, the local Arab community here looks forward to it very much. It gives them the opportunity to see films that they perhaps couldn’t. It is also a chance for them to reconnect with their culture.”
The films
This year’s programme consists of six features and each screening is pared with a short film. The opening film has a UAE flavour. The Palestinian drama When I Saw You benefited from Abu Dhabi Film Festival’s Sanad fund during its development and post-production.
Other films on the bill include:
• The Iraqi drama Ten Years of My Life, which focuses on the last days of Saddam Hussein's regime.
• The dark Lebanese comedy Scheherazade's Diary, the tale of former female prisoners who set up a theatre company.
• The United, an Egyptian sports drama in which a retired football legend comes out of retirement to train a team of pan-Arab misfits for a match against the giants of France.
• May in the Summer, a Jordanian family drama.
• Factory Girl, an Egyptian melodrama about a young worker who falls in love with her boss.
“It’s not just about selecting any Arab films that we can find,” says Zaylah. “We are always trying to produce a strong selection of films that represent Arab life and expose the Australian audience to the diversity and complexity of Arab culture.
The guest of honour
The festival’s noble aim has won the support and backing of two Abu Dhabi institutions – Etihad and Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) are among the festival’s leading sponsors.
The former flew the Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri to Sydney as the festival’s guest of honour. The airline is also flying the lucky winner of an opening-night raffle to Abu Dhabi.
Bakri's visit to the festival follows in the footsteps of the Emirati filmmaker Ali F Mostafa, who made a guest appearance in 2010 to screen his debut feature City of Life.
“It is fantastic to be here,” says Bakri. “To travel this far and to share my story with different cultures, as well as the Arab community here, is really a privilege.”
Zaylah hopes Bakri’s attendance will inspire aspiring Arab-Australian actors.
“Saleh’s presence this year really made an impact on the youth,” she says. “It was a great chance for them to connect with him and realise that he is not just another actor on the screen. Of course, the Palestinian community came out in force and are also taking Saleh out for their own events, so that is a great experience for him as well.”
Bakri’s attendance has also made an impression on the local media, with the news website Yahoo!7 News dubbing him “the Brad Pitt of Palestine”.
The future
With TCA Abu Dhabi signing on as a festival sponsor this year, Zaylah says the festival can only get better.
Thanks to the new partnership, Aboud and another member of the festival’s selection committee will attend the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in October to source films for next year’s event.
“We are looking forward to it,” says Zaylah. “It will be a great chance to meet other people in the industry and share stories and experiences. We can’t wait to come to Abu Dhabi.”
• For more information on Arab Film Festival Australia, visit arabfilmfestival.com.au
sasaeed@thenational.ae
COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
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Amira Sakalla
The Book of Collateral Damage
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(Yale University Press)
The White Lotus: Season three
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Padmaavat
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ICC Awards for 2021
MEN
Cricketer of the Year – Shaheen Afridi (Pakistan)
T20 Cricketer of the Year – Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan)
ODI Cricketer of the Year – Babar Azam (Pakistan)
Test Cricketer of the Year – Joe Root (England)
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Cricketer of the Year – Smriti Mandhana (India)
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CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Pearls on a Branch: Oral Tales
Najlaa Khoury, Archipelago Books
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
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The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
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- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
