On Friday, November 15, the Shardzhinskii film festival will start, which will take place in the Al Maradja square in the very center of Shardzhy. Various films and discussions will be presented at the festival, featuring participation from filmmakers and cinematographers from around the world.
The first film to be shown at the festival will be the documentary "Film as an Act of Resistance" (2024) directed by Kamal Al-Dzhaafari. Important documents, archival materials, and lost photographs will be restored before the screenings, creating a visual memory of Palestine against the practices of erasure and loss.
The festival will also feature various documentary films, including premieres in the OAE, among which are "The Soldier's Lake," "The Harvest of the Coconut Nut," "Clinica," "Shemel and Orkhideya," "The Machines of the Soul," "At Zero Distance," "A Small Diary about Film," "Observation at the Scene of the Crime," "On the Battlefield," "From That Moment On," "How Not to Drown in a Mirage."
For lovers of artistic cinema, films such as "Loris Never Cries," "In Solitude," "Monakh and Venice," "Sudzhus," "Kanaval," "Oasis of the Moment," "The Great Silence of History," "Six Plots," "Native Land," "Sumers," and "After."
The festival will celebrate the achievements of Syrian director Mohammada Malasa, known for his films dedicated to contemporary Syrian history and neighboring countries. Three of his films will be screened during the festival: "Dream" (1987), "Night" (1992), and his last film "I, Yusuf, Father" (2024), which tells the life story of the outgoing Syrian artist Yusuf Abdalk, while Malasa will also hold special lectures on the importance of post-revolutionary art in cinema.
The panel discussion program for this year's festival is centered on themes of modernity in new African and Asian cinema, cinema as a form of resistance and survival for Palestine and beyond, as well as innovations in the production of documentary cinema.
The festival's side projects will be held in the cinemas "Cinema Mirage City" at Al Maradja square and "Cinema Fox" in the center of the city of Zakhia. The events are supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Shardzhinsk Media Staff (SHAMS), the Fox cinema theater, and the Cultural and Artistic Council of Abu Dhabi.
