When you grow up with a single parent, anything that comes out of their mouth you consider to be gospel truth. Mainly because you have no other source from which to seek daily wisdom. You blindly follow, it becomes a habit and before you know it you're doing it because you want to, not just because dad says so.
My dad loves going to the movies. When he was growing up, he'd save up his entire week's worth of allowance - our family isn't well off - so on Fridays he could buy a ticket in the only movie theatre in town, alone, and lose himself to the magic of cinema.
Naturally, my childhood was spent losing myself in the dark, with him, in tales of adventure and fantasy and action and comedy. It became our thing.
My dad was the simple, quiet type and I reckon that at the movies he gets to lead lives he can't possibly have due to his circumstances.
The Gospel of Dad influenced me so much I ended up studying film at university. It held on even when I moved out of the house: spending all my Friday nights at the movie theatre two blocks away from my apartment, alone, in the dark, losing myself to the stories on screen.
When I moved to New York, I encountered a roadblock - the movie tickets were absurdly expensive and I was broke. I could barely eat three times a day, how could I spare the money for something as shallow as cinematic magic? "Losing myself"? "In the dark"? Get over your self, I thought.
I didn't.
I thought there must be a way to satiate my frivolity and I sought to discover it. I ended up working in a cinema, where in exchange for ushering people to their seats, selling disgustingly buttery popcorn and Gummi Bears and mopping soda-spilt floors, I was paid the minimum wage plus unlimited free movie tickets. Pure bliss! The pesky moviegoers, not so much; the access to temporary two-hour pleasures, yes.
At the movies, there's always a seat waiting for me. At the movies, I am - we all are - anonymous. We are all nobodies; we are equal.
Last weekend, at a screening at the Dubai International Film Festival, I was reminded of this. I met a college student who's volunteering for the festival and he told me the only reason he did it was so he could watch the movies for free. Throughout the film, I'd occasionally glance at him, standing on the side of the theatre, watching like the rest of us who paid for tickets, standing there and laughing with us and having a great time.
I approached him after. I asked him how it feels to watch a movie standing up: does it affect the whole cinematic experience?
"I don't know," he said, "because once the movie starts, everything else disappears."
jgabrillo@thenational.ae
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.