Swedish film festival to showcase 15 Arab films

Dubai-based Gulf Film Festival (GFF) will screen fifteen films from a variety of Arab countries in Sweden as part of a special event dedicated to the region, it was reported on Tuesday. The fifteen films, which include shorts, features and documentaries, from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen and Iraq will be screened at the Malmo Arab Film Festival later this month.Held from September 23 to 27, the festival is organised by the Arabian Scandinavian Cultural Centre (FADO), which works to promote dialogue and improve relationships between the Arab and Scandinavian cultures.The films will be showcased by Dubai-based Gulf Film Festival (GFF) and will include Emirati director Ali Mostafa’s feature film City of Life, which depicts the parallel worlds that exist simultaneously in Dubai. Three award-winning films will be screened - including Emirati director Khalid Al Mahmood’s Sabeel - the story of two young boys in Ras Al Khaimah who are forced to sell vegetables to help their ailing grandmother.Others include Hamama, Nujoom Al Ghanem’s documentary about a 90-year-old female healer from Al Dhaid and Iraqi filmmaker Koutaiba Al-Janabi’s Leaving Baghdad, a road movie that follows the personal cameraman to Saddam Hussein. “Having started out 10 years ago as a festival dedicated to celebrating Arab cinema, the Malmo Arab Film Festival has witnessed remarkable involvement of talent, underling the evolution of a vibrant Arab film industry. We are pleased to celebrate an eclectic array of feature, documentary, and short films that embody the spirit of creativity,” said Mouhamad Keblawi, Palestinian filmmaker and director of the festival. The Malmo Arab Film Festival will also host a number of seminars on Arab women in cinema, the Arab Spring and the development of Gulf cinema. “Sweden’s Malmo Arab Film Festival showcases some of the finest Arab films in the world, and is a wonderful opportunity for emerging and established talents to access an entirely new audience. Each of these films has the power to change cultural misconceptions and popular stereotypes by revealing the reality of the modern Arab world,” added Masoud Amralla Al Ali, festival director at Gulf Film Festival. Qatar Airways currently operates flights to the Swedish capital of Stockholm from Doha. From / Arabian Business News