DUBAI, 19 December 2005 — Movie-making in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may be light years behind some other parts of the globe, but young filmmakers are eager to grab their cameras to show their Arab Muslim way of life.
Flashes flicker at the Dubai Film Festival conference center as four young men wearing immaculate white traditional robes and headdresses, along with a 23-year-old woman covered in black from head to toe, enter the luxurious ballroom.
They are the five proud UAE directors of short films which were selected for screening at last week’s second annual edition of the festival, which featured 98 films from 46 countries.
“People think that we are an oil country, so we must live in mystic ivory towers, but in fact we have social and economic problems like everybody else,” said director Omar Ibrahim.
The other entries were Abdullah Hassan Ahmeds “Amen” about a young boys ordeal with a cruel father; Ali Mustaphas “Under the Sun” which follows a Muslim boy on his first day of fasting; and Saeed Al-Murrys “Hoboob” that shows a young man who falls into conflict with himself as he tries to dig a well in a small village.
Nada Mohamed Al-Karimi, the only woman director in the section, presented her short film, “Dying for Fun,” a documentary about man’s criminal tendencies by telling the story of small dyed chicks turned by people into toys.
The first Emirati film to be ever screened commercially was only last September.
Typical enough about the Gulf country’s fast-paced evolution into a major regional hub, the film, called “Helem” (Dream), was about three young Emirati men lost in the desert, searching for a way out both physically and at a higher spiritual level.
Amrallah said the only films made in the UAE in the 1950s and 1960s were documentaries about animal and wild desert life, and they were funded by oil companies.
“After that, we had these news reels in cinema theaters, and then we had only a handful of films up until the end of the 1990s.
It was not until we held a competition for Emirati films in 2002 that we witnessed radical change in movie-making,” he said.
Although there are still no film academies in the country and no special funding bodies, the annual competition now receives each year about 70 entries.
“We have many problems to tackle, including identity problems, as we now live with over 130 other nationalities. The Emirati people feel lost in their own country, in which they have become a minority,” he said.
Ali Mustafa, who has a master’s degree from the London Film School, said: “I decided to do a film on the young boys first fasting day because I noticed that foreigners have a view of Islam which we do not understand, probably based on how a minority of (extremists) are behaving.” Karimi said her film about the chicks was also “inspired by Islam which is a peaceful religion that preserves the rights of animals.” But as revolutionary as the young Emiratis want to be, they all do not seem to be keen on challenging social and religious traditions.