Sharjah Art Foundation screens free movies online tomorrow

The shows will be from 8:30 PM to 9:15 PM on the website

Sharjah: The Sharjah Art Foundation has planned to bring three short films this weekend. The screening will be online, intended to tempt the people sit at home which would be the best to observe in the pandemic time. Sharjah Art Foundation activities and events take place throughout the year and include exhibitions featuring the work of Arab and international artists, performances, music and film screenings.

About the event:

This is the second in a three-part series of online screenings which they named ‘Ghosts of Songs: Oral Histories in MENA Female Cinema’. The screening is done in collaboration with the digital film archiving platform Habibi Collective. The programme is scheduled to be at 8:30 PM, the local time, on 12^th June. Three documentaries and experimental short films will be wired. These shows will be based on various themes – memory, while considering the relationship with environment and culture, impact of migration and family life during the times of unrest.

This film festival, as reports say, runs until June 26^th where viewers can log on to Sharjah Art Foundation’s website to stream it. The aim of the film festival is to appreciate the world of female filmmakers from the Middle East and North Africa region. Drawing from acclaimed short and feature-length narratives, documentary and experimental films, the three programmes in the series focus on a different theme. They map various traditions and explorations of feminist narratives across film-making in the region.

The Art Foundation has warned that the movies will not be streamed always. Viewers need to check in to their site as and when the show starts. Those who log in later cannot watch the movie from the beginning. Obtained from the details given by Sharjah Art Foundation, the following are the movies that would be screened from tomorrow onwards:

Fiery Father (2018)

This film comes from United Kingdom, directed by Jala Wahid. The title is actually ‘Baba Gurgur’ which means fiery father in Kurdish. The movie explores the symbolism surrounding the eponymous natural fire Baba Gurgur as it has a specific mythical and political importance that holds in Kurdish culture. Against the backdrop of the daf drum, the formation of crude oil becomes synonymous with Kurdish dancing (halparkeh), creating a landscape where the Kurdish spirit is the embodiment of its disputed land. This 7-minute movie is said to have no dialogues but narrations given by English and Kurdish subtitles.

Only My Voice (2017)

The origin of ‘Only my voice’ is also England. Directed by Myriam Rey, this movie transits through Athens. Four migrant women from the Middle East share their stories of being uprooted from their land. As they recount their personal experiences of freedom, their stories, resonating and interacting with the city of Athens, they gradually begin to echo one another. The film is in Arabic with English subtitles with 12 minutes duration.

Like a String of Beads (2019)

The director Inas Halabi portrays, in this Palestinian film, the lives of nine siblings who reside in the village of Ibillin in northern Palestine. As they explore their individual oral histories, the family members attempt to build a collective history. With the action contained within one household, the film unpacks diverging experiences of the same events, veering between collective agreement and disagreement, and traces the rhythms of daily life and the memories haunting the home. This 26-minute long movie is in Arabic and has English subtitles.