| December 2011
1. Dubai International Film Festival: World Premiere Simon El Habre’s GATE #5
2. MY NAME IS NOT ALI by Viola Shafik for festivals and institutions
3. mec film at DIFF
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1. Dubai International Film Festival: World Premiere Simon El Habre’s GATE #5
We are happy to announce the World Premiere of Simon El Habre’s (The One Man Village) new documentary GATE #5 at Dubai International Film Festival.
screening dates: December 9th, 8pm @ Mall of the Emirates 6, December 11th, 2.30pm @ Mall of the Emirates 6 (in the presence of the director and members of the team)
Content
They were young, loved adventures and had choices. In the 1960s and 70s thousands of young Lebanese left their villages and searched for a new life in the city – as countless like-minded people around the globe. The port of Beirut, the city’s economic lung and central urban district, provided work for truck drivers - a job that stressed masculinity and became a lifestyle. The income allowed the young men to participate in the vibrant urban life, to enjoy their time at the always busy Burj Square with its many cinemas and restaurants as well as to start families.
During the years of the civil war (1975-90) the drivers were needed to maintain the supply of food, goods, and sometime weapons between the divided sectors of country. Some were humble, others were heroic, yet all were adventuresomeness and felt free.
After the war ended the once popular Burj Square, the city’s centre, was demolished, privatized and rebuild for the affluent. Lebanese economy was reorganized, thus globalized. Today fancy restaurants in the new downtown charge in Dollar and sometimes in Euro.
The truck drivers’ universe shrunk to the port where they offer their skills as day laborers now. Yet mostly they kill time and take long journeys in memory. One of them, Najm El Habre, is too sick to join his friends. He found a different way to carry on.
Simon El Habre, Lebanon 2011, 83 min, HDCAM, Arabic wih English ST
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Contact at DIFF
for festivals: Irit Neidhardt (mec film) 7.-14.12.2011
phone 49-163-5684073, mail: irit [ at ] mecfilm dot de
for sales: Delphyne Besse (Pacha Pictures)
phone 33-6-72729193, mail: dbesse [ at ] pachapictures dot com
for Canadian territory: Paul Scherzer (Six Island Productions) 7.-12.12.2011
phone 1-416-5383455, mail: paul [ at ] sixisland dot com
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2. MY NAME IS NOT ALI by Viola Shafik for festivals and institutions
Viola Shafik’s deconstructive biography of El Hedi Ben Salem, the main actor in Fassbinder’s Ali – Fear Eats Soul, is now available for screenings at festivals and for institutions
Content
His anti-racist film Ali – Fear Eats Soul (1973) gained German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder international acclaim. The protagonist, an Arab foreign worker, was played by Moroccan El Hedi Ben Salem M’barek Mohammed Mustafa, Fassbinder’s lover at that time. While the film itself courageously deals with the racism of post-war German society, its makers reproduced the insensibility and invention of the Other, fantasizing their own ‘Salem’. Collage-like, through interviews and archive material, My Name Is Not Ali uncovers the invention of El Hedi Ben Salem by the Fassbinder troupe, an image not revised by most of its members till today.
Viola Shafik, Egypt/Germany 2011, 93 min, HDCAM, German/Arabic/France with English ST
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3. mec film at DIFF
mec film is represented at Dubai International Film Festival from December 7th till 15th by Irit Neidhardt, Contact: 49-163-5684073
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