Ever since mankind came to existence and he has been telling stories, stories of love, war, life and other tales. Through the ages, stories kept of changing not only in terms of settings, plots and characters, but also in terms of storytelling. And in search of today’s stories a new novel initiative was launched to search stories of stories — Your Film Festival.
Seven years ago, I was somewhere deep into the Arabian Desert sitting around the bonfire with Bedouin tribesmen. One of the tribe’s elders, Gamil, was telling stories about his tribe’s heritage. They were fascinating tales that bordered imaginary worlds, and left me peculiarly fascinated. That very same peculiar fascination I felt again on Aug. 28 when I attended the special screening of Your Film Festival in Dubai.
The festival aims to search for today’s storytellers using the Internet as a medium. A collaboration between Emirates airline, YouTube, Scott Free Productions and La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Film Festival), the festival took off with a call for storytellers to upload their stories online. Over 15,000 entries were submitted, and narrowed down to 50 semi-finalists. Internet users from around the world voted for the best ten, and those finalists were honored by having their short films screened this month in Dubai. The ten finalists are bound to fly later to Italy to screen their submissions and compete for a $500,000 grand prize.
Up and coming filmmakers and directors from across the globe participated in the initial 15,000 entries, and the ten finalists included two entries from the Middle East. Lebanese Niam Itani earned herself a well-deserved place in the top ten with “Super Full”, a tale of a mute Indian worker in Qatar, struggling to make ends meet and dreaming of taking his wife out for a fancy dinner to celebrate her birthday. “I remember when my father took us to a restaurant, I was seven” said the wife. The other Arab entry hails from Middle East’s Cairo-wood. Egyptian Ramy El Gabry left the audience tantalized with his touching “This Time”, a tale of an old mother abandoned by her only son. “With the fast rhythm of today’s life, we tend to forget about kindness, so I went on and made this movie hoping to remind people of our humane side” commented the young Egyptian director.
Other entries that left the audience fervently clapping their hands included “North Atlantic” by Portuguese filmmaker Bernardo Nascimento. Based on a true story, “North Atlantic” tells the story of the last couple of hours in the life of a solo pilot lost while flying over the Atlantic Ocean, and the relation he developed in those hours with two air traffic controllers. Latin American filmmaking was also present, represented by the Bolivian short film “El General”. Directed by Diego Pino, “El General” breaks the boundaries between reality and fiction in a way that reminds us of Latin America’s mystical realism school of literature. “If Colombia’s famous writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez was to direct a movie, it would be very similar to El General” commented one of the audience who enthusiastically cheered the movie.
My own personal favorite, and I am far from being a film critic, is “The Guilt” by Spanish director David Victori. “The Guilt” touches on the idea of revenge and how it leads to an endless vicious circle. The idea might be as ancient as one Chinese proverb that says, “Before you seek revenge, dig two graves” nevertheless the psychedelic treatment will leave you clinging to your seat. David Victori utilizes cinematographic elements to create a mood that literally draws you in.
Seven years ago when I was listening to the Bedouin elder Gamil telling me stories about legendary heroes and mythical creatures, I didn’t comprehend why his stories left me fascinated. Realization hit me, however, when I attended Your Film Festival screening in Dubai, it is the passion with which the story is being told. Or as Egyptian Ramy El Gabry puts it “I do this because I love to tell stories. And this is my way of telling them.”
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