Fast Forward to the Past: Cultural Institutions, Urban Development, and Regional Cinema in the Gulf Today

from Ibraaz:

Mohammed Rashed Buali, The Good Omen,2009, film still. Produced by Bahrain Film Production.
Written by Fareed Ramadan. Courtesy of Mohammed Rashed Buali

"When drawing a visual image of the Gulf, it is perhaps difficult to dissociate it from the elaborate architectural renderings peddled by ambitious architecture and engineering firms, and the glittering vista of skyscrapers, highways, and man-made islands that have come to epitomise the area. Writer and critic Sheyma Buali takes a look at the new crop of films, be they shorts, documentary or narrative films, that look past the computer generated images (CGI) to the fast-disappearing reality beneath it – Bedouin life-styles, livelihoods based on fishing, homes made of stone rather than steel, and the attempts of local peoples to adapt to their new surroundings."


read: FAST FORWARD TO THE PAST: CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS, URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND REGIONAL CINEMA IN THE GULF TODAY

interview with Mohanad Yaqubi for Ibraaz

rushes of Tal Al Zaatar, AAMOD, Rome. Courtesy of Mohanad Yaqubi

from Ibraaz:

"In this interview for Ibraaz, writer and critic Sheyma Buali talk to Palestinian filmmaker Mohanad Yaqubi about his latest project, Off Frame.  Working with found documentary footage of the first two years of the Lebanese Civil War shot by the Palestine Film Unit (PFU), these precious reels were lying neglected in Italy until Yaqubi re-discovered them in 2011.  He has since brought them to life again to show the depth of Palestine's filmmaking history, its role in shaping Palestinian identity, and it ties to the wider Third Cinema movement.  What unfolds here is a story of a specific form of 'militant cinema', in which "reels were treated as ammo" and a narrative of commitment and circumstance in which images revisit a history once though lost to the vagaries of war unfolds.  To this, Yaqubi adds his own question, namely: Was there more revolution in cinema than revolution itself?"

read: A MILITANT CINEMA: A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MOHANAD YAQUBI AND SHEYMA BUALI

Zeyneb, film still from Tal Al Zaatar, 1977. Courtesy of UNITEL FILMS/PFU