DUBAI, 6 December 2004 — The Dubai International Film Festival, the first to be staged in the Gulf state, will open today and runs till next Saturday. It will offer the entire region an opportunity to show uncensored movies, organizers said.
Among the 75 films to be screened during the festival, 13 will premiere in Middle East cinemas and 30 will be shown for the first time in the region.
The festival will bring together Arab and several A-list celebrities such as Morgan Freeman and Sarah Michelle Gellar, the stars of “Oceans 12”, and Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan, as well as Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom is due to arrive here with “Lord of the Rings” co-stars in time for the festival’s gala opening ceremony today evening.
Celebrities such as Prince Albert of Monaco and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu have also been invited to attend. During the festival, Egyptian international actor Omar Sharif will be honored with a special retrospective award highlighting his career.
More than 25 countries are represented at the festival and the films will be divided into themes, including Arabian Nights, Operation Cultural Bridge, Hi-Tech Hollywood and Cinema from the Subcontinent.
The films, which will be screened at six venues in Dubai, include the acclaimed British “Hamburg Cell”, about the Sept. 11 suicide bombers and “The Motorcycle Diaries”, about the life of revolutionary Che Guevara.
Another film debuting is the Egyptian movie “Control Room”, a documentary about the Qatar-based satellite television network Al- Jazeera’s coverage of the war in Iraq last year.
The festival will also screen the first-ever animated film produced in the Gulf, “The Jungle Kid” (Ibn Al Ghabah), a joint production by several Arab and Gulf states.
Dubai is trying to compete with the existing centers of film production in the Middle East in Morocco and Tunisia and is developing the Dubai Film City, an area of land which will have facilities aimed at encouraging Western and regional film production and attracting Hollywood studios to the state.
The chairman of the festival, Sheikh Ahmad ibn Saeed Al-Maktoum, said in remarks published yesterday that this year’s event, “should become one of the most important events on the cinematic calendar”.
“When Dubai does anything, it does it well, and reaches for the skies,” he added.
Professional projectionists and other technical specialists are being flown in from well-known North American and European film festivals.
The festival is being staged at an estimated cost of $6 million and has taken two years to prepare. It is being presented by Dubai Media City and sponsors include Dubai Duty Free, Emirates, Madinat Jumeirah Arabian Resort-Dubai and Nakheel developers.