CinemaMAS Weekend day two

The final afternoon of films in the sixth edition of the Manarat’s CinemaMAS film festival; there’s a single price (AED 50) for the whole programme. (Individual films on weekdays are AED 30 per head, and there’s an all-inclusive ticket at AED 150 that includes the weekends.)

3pm BlueBack dir Robert Connolly (2022, 102 mins: still above)

Eco-adventure following a young girl who befriends a magnificent wild blue groper while diving, becomes a passionate activist for protecting the ecosystem of Australia’s coral reefs from destruction, and takes on poachers to save her finny friend.

4.45pm The Diary of a Sky dir Lawrance-Abu Hamdan (2023, 45 mins)

While the world came to a standstill in many places in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic, and an almost eerie silence set in, noise levels in Beirut increased massively – the roar of the generators that compensate for the lack of electricity supply from the gird mingles with the noise of the 50 or so Israeli army drones and fighter jets that fly over the country every day. This documentary is an essayistic collage of videos aggregated by the artist between 2020 and 2021, a diary that bears witness to the ways in which this atmospheric violence is both terrifying and yet so integrated into daily life that it becomes ignorable in its monotony.

5.30pm 45th Parallel dir Lawrance-Abu Hamdan (2022, 15 mins)

Another thoughtful piece by the artist Lawrance-Abu Hamdan, this one analysing the contradictions of borders and laws that govern the Haskell Free Library and Opera House – a building constructed in 1904 that straddles the US-Canadian border. This peculiar site becomes the stage for an investigative monologue about the 2010 shooting of an unarmed 15-year-old Mexican by a U.S. Border Patrol agent and America’s remote murders-by-drone in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan.

5.45pm Walled Unwalled dir Lawrance-Abu Hamdan (2018, 21 mins)

In 2000 there were a total of 15 fortified border walls and fences between sovereign nations. By 2018 there were 63. And yet, all the time, millions and millions of invisible cosmic particles called muons are descending into the Earth’s atmosphere and penetrating metres deep through layers of concrete, soil, and rock. Scientists have developed a technology to leverage their peculiar physical capacities to allow us to see what lies beneath us – from contraband hidden in lead-lined shipping containers, to secret chambers inside the pyramids. Now no wall on Earth is impermeable …

6.05pm Rubber Coated Steel dir Lawrance-Abu Hamdan (2016, 22 mins)

In 2014, artist and audio investigator Lawrence Abu Hamdan was asked to examine audio files that recorded the shots that killed Nadeem Nawara and Mohamed Abu Daher on the West Bank. Rubber Coated Steel is a work that reflects on that process. It does not preside over the voices of the victims but seeks to amplify their silence, questioning the ways in which rights are being heard today.

6.30pm Once Removed dir Lawrance-Abu Hamdan (2019, 29 mins)

Documentary in the life and work of Bassel Abi Chahine, a writer and historian who managed to obtain rare objects, photographs and interviews related to the militias led by Walid Jumblatt during the Lebanese Civil War.

7pm Yellow Bus dir Wendy Bednarz (2023, 112 mins)

Set in an unnamed Arabian Gulf country (but you probably know which it is), this film follows the unbearable tragedy of a young girl who dies in the sweltering desert heat on a school bus. Consumed by grief, mother Anada sets out to find the truth about who is accountable … Arabic and Hindi with English subtitles.