Jehane Noujaim's Control Room
"You're appalling, you son of a dog. May your house be destroyed!" one Egyptian woman yelled during a showing of Jehane Noujaim's Control Room at the first Dubai International Film Festival. The woman's anger was directed at U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who is shown describing scenes of grieving Iraqis and bombed-out buildings as having been "stage-managed." Control Room, which goes behind the scenes of the Arab-language network Al Jazeera, is one of the dozens of films being presented at the Dubai festival.
The American government and military have claimed that the Qatar-based Al Jazeera is an anti-American tool for Muslim radicals, an accusation vehemently refuted by the network. Thus far, five Arab countries, among them US allies Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have banned the station. According to Aljazeera.net, to date Control Room has not been distributed in any Arab nation.
Orlando Bloom and Morgan Freeman are two Hollywood personalities that showed up in Dubai, which is supposed to work as a cultural bridge between the Muslim and the non-Muslim worlds.
Additionally, festival organizers announced that more than 70 top-rated Arab performers, producers, and directors from Egypt, Syria and Kuwait took part in the film festival. Among those present were actors Duraid Lahham and Laila Olwi, directors Ali Badrakhan and Hala Khalil, and producers Safwat Ghatas and Mohamed Hussein Ramzy.