Gulf FilmFest 2022
Here you can find the AGAPS sponsored films for MESA 2022 along with selected trailers underneath.
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UAE 2021; color; English, Hindi, Urdu, and Arabic with English subtitles; 10 minutes; dir. Kaashif Hajee
Eager to fit in with his highschool friends in Abu Dhabi, Armaan distances himself from his parents and his Indian identity. Ali, a taxi driver, yearns for his family in Pakistan as he struggles to make ends meet and provide for his daughter’s education. One day, when Armaan plans to go partying with his friends, their lives serendipitously intersect, unravelling questions of identity, position and privilege in Abu Dhabi.
Gair (Outsider) -
Sudan/Qatar 2021; color; English; 7 minutes; dir. Suzannah Mirghani
This is a satirical review of our times. Suzi doll is an ego-warrior. My online avatar, marching to the algorithms of social media. She is lit by temporary outrage. A trending indignation. A passion that is fashion. A politics of the popular. Her activism is abstract. Her help is hypothetical. We know many girls like Suzi, and many times we are her: vacuous virtual voices, echoing injustices.
Virtual Voice -
Palestine/UAE 2022; color; Arabic with English subtitles; 9.5 minutes; dir. Jude Elziq
Nine-year-old Aya is too young to understand the politics of occupation but faces the restrictions of not being able to play outside anymore. One night soldiers raid her home, leaving her younger brother trembling. It is this night that Aya musters the courage to face her monsters to liberate herself from the barricades that surround her.
Between the Barricades -
Jordan/UAE/Spain/Italy 2019; color; English, Arabic, Greek, Italian, and Spanish with English subtitles; 85 minutes; dir. Alia Yunis
The Golden Harvest is 6,000-year old love story in which the filmmaker tries to understand the profound, often troubled, relationship between olive oil and the people of Mediterranean, including her Palestinian father. Her journey takes her to unexpected places as an increasingly diverse cast of characters get involved in unraveling this tale.
The Golden Harvest -
UAE/Qatar/Yemen 2021; color; English and Arabic with English subtitles; 9 minutes; dir. Shaima Al-Tamimi
Don’t Get Too Comfortable is a heartfelt introspective letter to the director’s deceased grandfather. The letter questions the continuous pattern of movement amongst Yemenis in diaspora. The film fuses archival photographs, sourced footage, parallax animation, abstract videos to create an audio visual body of work that calls attention to the collective feeling of statelessness and sense of being felt by migrants.
Don’t Get Too Comfortable -
Kuwait/Qatar 2021; color; Arabic with English subtitles; 7 minutes; dir. Maysaa Almumin
A grandmother’s stories of travel as loss and longing for loved ones are redefined during a period of isolation. As the filmmaker re-enacts her childhood moments, she becomes both her grandmother sewing dresses, and her child-self watching. She dreams of moments when she can travel to the ones she loves, and her grandmother’s words bring meaning to her feelings of absence and melancholy, her saudade.
...And I Was Left Behind -
Qatar 2021; color; English; 8.5 minutes; dir. Ania Wójtowicz
Locked up at a clinic in the sky. How did we get halfway to heaven, and where do we go from here? A couple checks into a 20th-floor suite with sea view and sealed windows, their non-optional stay funded by the Qatar government. Suspended between realities, the Covid-positive pair gaze down at the stream of miniature cars and people below – fighting the inertia of isolation as everyone’s fate hangs in the balance.
Fever Dream
