The development of the Arab film movement over the past five years has been a focal point of the Shubbak festival in London, a month-long series of events showcasing contemporary Arab culture in the UK capital.
In pictures: Shubbak festival, London
Shubbak - Arabic for window - saw contributors from the Emirates join Arab artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, choreographers and architects from around the world display their works at more than 70 events across the capital.
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Of the many events, one of the most prominent was organised by the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) and Invia (Institute of International Visual Arts). The DIFF programmers selected four award-winning Emirati short films to present: Sabeel by Khalid Al Mahmood, which won first prize at the fourth Gulf Film Festival (GFF), and was runner-up at the inaugural Muhr Emirati Awards at DIFF; Hamad Al Hammadi's End of December, the winner of a prize at the GFF Student competition; Slow Death which received a special mention at GFF; and Nayla Al Khaja's Malal (Bored), winner of the Muhr Emirati Awards at DIFF 2010.
The cinematic movement in the region has exploded at such a pace that the guest speaker Catherine David, former artistic director of documenta X, the tenth edition of an art exhibition that takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany, said: "It's all so new that it's difficult to have much expertise."
Nonetheless, the academic debate that took place after the films were projected on to a wall at the gallery highlighted some of the thoughts that have been developing about Arab film, as the seeds of a movement have been shooting up over the past five years.
At a discussion chaired by Kay Dickinson, a lecturer at the University of London and the editor of The Arab Avant Garde, one of the main topics discussed was the emergence of a cinema focusing on social and cultural aspects of life in the UAE, rather than the political - what David called "the looking at the social process". This was "happening faster", she said, observing that End of December, a film about the journey undertaken by an old man with his daughter after his room catches fire, reflected a discussion about the despair among older people in a fast-changing society. "Indeed, three of the four movies do not deal with the landscape of tall buildings and the heart of the city," she added, "and this is quite strange because visual artists are more concerned with the urban context."
Migration was a hot topic in these films, said David, citing Slow Death, in which a retiring gravedigger's desire to remain in the UAE, in which he has lived for 30 years, conflicts with rules on migrant labour.
The link between the Emirates, migration and the burgeoning economy of India is established in Malal. A young Emirati couple travel to Kerala for their honeymoon. The wife finds her arranged marriage emotionless and on the last day of the holiday has an encounter that transforms her honeymoon.
Sabeel is about the struggles of two young boys trying to buy medicine for their grandmother.
One of the features that David argued unified the films was their lack of dialogue. They all attempt to present experience directly and avoid analysis.
This discussion was the second of the Take 1/Take 2 Yesterday and Today in the Middle East events that took place at Invia. The first night focused on the exploration of gender and related issues as explored through fictional rather than documentary shorts. The films that made up this programme were Les Illuminées (The Enlightened) by Halida Boughriet, a film about the burqa set at a Paris Metro station; Wet Tiles by Lamya Gargash, looking at forgotten spaces in Emirati society; the Egyptian picture The Fifth Pound, which focuses on the policing of desire on a bus; Red Chewing Gum by Akram Zaatari, which takes place in a deserted alleyway, and Rabih Mroue's metaphysical movie Face A/ Face B. The writer and director Mahdi Fleifel chaired a discussion on the topics raised. He also disclosed that he is nearing completion on a documentary set in a refugee camp based on his own family history.
Syrian and Palestinian films were on the agenda when the London-based Zenith Foundation held an evening of six short films, under the heading Vanishing Spaces. Two films by the late Syrian documentary-maker Omar Amiralay were screened: his first film, Film Essay on the Euphrates Dam and his last, A Plate of Sardines. Two other films from Syria, They Were Here and Before Vanishing, were also about the industrial process and changes in society.
The evening started and ended with two black-and-white films from Palestine: Na'im and Wade'a by Najwa Najjar, who made the 2008 feature Pomegranates and Myrrh, makes use of archive material to recount the tale of her family's forced resettlement in Jordan. Larissa Sansour's Soup Over Bethlehem takes place over a dinner discussion about Palestinian life.
Land In Focus took a look at contemporary cinema from a different country or region at each of its sessions. The day-long event at the Richmix cinema was divided into six sections. The first focused on six short films made at film schools in the region. Other sections included Crossing Borders, which looked at European and Arab directors who had shot films in the region, one on Egyptian female directors, a look at films being made in Morocco, a special selection of Arab films, including a screening of Flu, which won Best Short Arab film at the Jordan Film Festival in 2010, and which was followed by an onstage interview with the director Riad Makdessi.
Also attending was the filmmaker Mahmoud Kaabour and his production partner and wife Eva Star Sayre. The evening ended with a section devoted to his films Being Osama and Grandma, A Thousand Times (originally Teta, Alf Marra) which recently won the top prize at the London Documentary Film Festival.
Being Osama was first shown in 2004 in Canada and uses the simple but ingenious concept of interviewing and recounting the experiences of people called Osama living in Montreal after the September 2011 attacks on New York. This starting point is then used to investigate themes of religion, displacement and immigration. It was a rare screening of the film, and Kaabour admitted to the packed audience that he would be watching the film again for the first time in several years.
Like many of the films on show at Shubbak, Grandma, A Thousand Times involves an Arab filmmaker using his family history as a focal point to tell a wider story about the changing face of Arab society. It's a touching and humorous portrait of family life, and is especially pertinent on how the importance and central role of the family in modern Arab society has changed.
Other events have included a focus on Yemeni cinema, which took place at the Royal Geographical Society and a retrospective on the works of the Egyptian filmmaker Youssaf Chahine. Feature films shown at the festival included Microphone by Ahmad Abdalla, which won the Best Arabic Language Film prize at the Cairo International Film Awards.
ŸShubbak's film events continue for the rest of the month. Between tomorrow and July 23, DIFF is screening a selection of Arab short films at the Mosaic Rooms in Kensington. Included in the selection is Mohammed Al Hushki's award-winning Jordanian feature, Transit Cities.
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
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Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
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What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
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Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
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A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
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Tim Southee (capt), Trent Boult (games 4 and 5), Colin de Grandhomme, Lockie Ferguson (games 1-3), Martin Guptill, Scott Kuggeleijn, Daryl Mitchell, Colin Munro, Jimmy Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Tim Seifert, Ish Sodhi, Ross Taylor, Blair Tickner
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- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
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T20 squad: Eoin Morgan (capt), Jonny Bairstow, Tom Banton, Sam Billings, Pat Brown, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Joe Denly, Lewis Gregory, Chris Jordan, Saqib Mahmood, Dawid Malan, Matt Parkinson, Adil Rashid, James Vince
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