Dubai Film Festival Articles

The winners at the 6th edition of the Dubai Film Festival, which ran Dec. 9-16, were announced about ten days ago. They were divided into two sections: Arab Award and Asia-Africa Award winners. The top narrative feature in each section was, respectively, Michel Khleifi's Zindeeq (above, top photo) and Brillante Mendoza's Lola (above, lower photo). A Palestinian/British/United Arab Emirates co-production, Zindeeq tells the story of [...]

2008 Dubai Film Festival Awards 2008 Dubai Film Festival: Dec. 11-18, 2008   In Lyes Salem's Masquerades, an arrogant man (played by Salem) living with his family in an Algerian village has one dream: to be respected by those around him. The problem is that he has a sister whom everyone believes will end up a spinster. To resolve the issue, the man tells everyone [...]

One of the films screening at the 4th Dubai International Film Festival's Celebration of Indian Cinema sidebar is Shivajee Chandrabhushan's feature-film debut, Frozen, set in the Kashmiri Himalayas. Written by Shanker Raman (from a story by Chandrabhushan), Frozen follows a teenage girl living with her father and younger brother in a remote mountain village. The family's harsh but peaceful existence is drastically disrupted after the [...]

The 4th Dubai International Film Festival, which runs from December 9-16, will offer several world premieres, mostly in its Arabian Nights and Celebration of Indian Cinema sidebars. Among the premieres are: the Arabian Nights sidebar gala, Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch's Whatever Lola Wants, starring Carmen Lebbos and Laura Ramsey (right) as, respectively, a legendary Egyptian dancer and a New York dance student; Amin Matalqa's Captain [...]