Dubai film festival to include outdoor concerts

DUBAI // You've seen the movie, now hear the music.

From Mexican mariachi to Egyptian hip hop, musicians from around the world will perform outdoor shows to complement screenings at the Dubai International Film Festival.

The concerts will be held on The Walk in Jumeirah Beach Residence on December 15, 16 and 17, as part of the festival's Rhythm and Reels line-up.

A temporary venue will be set up "to maximise the community's interaction with these films," Masoud Amralla Al Ali, the festival's artistic director, said.

Rhythm and Reels begins with the screening of the Mexican movie Enamorada, the story of a guerrilla general who falls in love with a rich man's daughter. The love story will be followed by a concert featuring the six-member mariachi band Grupo Impulsor de la Musica Representativa de Mexico and a team of six folk dancers from a folkloric ballet troupe.

The next day, Rima Khcheich, a Lebanese singer, will perform a classical Arabic concert after the film My Wife's Husband, a comedy starring the veteran actress Sabah from Lebanon.

And on December 17, after the Egyptian film Microphone, which stars Khaled Aboul Naga and is directed by the Heliopolis helmsman Ahmed Abdallah El-Sayed, two acts from Egypt will take the stage - Massar Egbari , which plays traditional Egyptian music fused with rock, jazz and blues, and Y-Crew, a three-member hip hop band.

Organisers are preparing to host crowds that could top 1,000 on each of the three nights.

Mr Ali and his team have selected an eclectic mix of music-based movies to fill out the Rhythm and Reels schedule. These include Lennon NYC, a documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono's life in New York in the 1970s featuring exclusive interviews with Ono; When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors; and a documentary about the Gwana music of the Maghreb, Tagnawittude.

China's offering of The Piano in a Factory, Zhang Meng's film about a steel factory worker who makes a piano to fight for the custody of his daughter, has been called one of the most powerful films in contemporary Chinese cinema. It screens on the final day of the festival, which runs December 12-19.

Tickets cost Dh25 for a movie and Dh45 for a movie and a concert.

aseaman@thenational.ae