Sharjah Film Platform 7

Sharjah Arts Foundation’s annual indie/experimental film festival returns for its seventh edition, featuring around 30 UAE premieres.

Most are in the Competition section, documentary and fiction films that have been nominated by an international committee of filmmakers and industry professionals. Highlights include …

◊ Kamal Al Jafari’s documentary A Fidai Film (2024) which seeks to reclaim the looted memories of Palestinian history by using archival footage
◊ Places of the Soul (2023) by Hamida Issa, which follows an environmental expedition to Antarctica while juxtaposing its icy landscape with the deserts of the filmmaker’s home country
◊ Pham Ngoc Lan’s fiction feature Cu Li Never Cries (2024), a black and white film interweaving personal and political histories in current day Vietnam
◊ The Great Yawn of History (2024) by Iranian filmmaker Aliyar Rasti, a story about a middle-aged religious man who goes on a quest for hidden treasure.

Among the other films showing are two supported by Sharjah Art Foundation – From Ground Zero (2024), an anthology of 22 short films created by filmmakers from Gaza; and Upshot (2024), a short directed by Maha Haj, which tells a story of a solitary couple and the aftermaths of a painful past.

The Director in Focus segment honours regional directors for their lifetime achievements in global cinema. Honoured this year is Mohamad Malas, noted for his moving films chronicling the modern history of Syria and its neighbours. Along with the screening of The Dream (1987), The Night (1992) and the global premiere of Oh Father, I Am Youssef (2024), Malas will give a masterclass on the role of storytelling.

Presented in parallel with the film screenings, a series of public programmes provides opportunities for learning and gathering. This year’s programme focuses on notions of modernity in new African and Asian film, cinema as resistance and resilience from Palestine and beyond, as well as innovations in documentary filmmaking, among other topics.

Also part of this year’s SFP is the Sharjah Film Platform Feature Fund that will award AED 500,000 to one UAE-based scriptwriter, director or lead/executive producer for the completion of an English- or Arabic-language narrative feature currently under production. Formerly known as the Pitching Forum, the strengthened fund should now provide more comprehensive and robust support to filmmakers in the country.

SFP7 runs 15 to 24 November at the open-air Mirage City Cinema in Sharjah’s historical quarter, and indoors at VOX Cinemas at City Centre Al Zahia. The full programme is here; most feature screenings are a bargain AED 15, some are free.