SHARJAH FILM PLATFORM SCREENING SCHEDULE 19–26 January 2019 Programme 1 Friday, 18 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema Saturday, 26 January - 3:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Sharjah Film Platform annually awards Short Film Production Grants in support of film production in the UAE and internationally. Selected through an open call, this year’s grant winners are Abdulrahman Al Madani and Mohammed Al Hammadi, whose films Laymoon and Maryam, respectively, will be premiered at the festival. Al Madani and Al Hammadi will discuss their films after the screenings on opening night. Laymoon (2019) Director: Abdulrahman Al Madani United Arab Emirates Narrative | 16 min Arabic with English subtitles A neglected housewife’s constant attempts to regain her short-tempered husband’s interest in their marriage prove futile. Influenced by her best friend, she realises her efforts need to stretch beyond a wholesome meal. Abdulrahman Al Madani started making films in 2012, focusing particularly on social issues. His first documentary short, The Gamboo3a Revolution (2012), won awards from the Gulf Film Festival and the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, and he also directed the two short films Guilt (2013) and Nagafa (2014). He received a bachelor's degree in applied media studies from the Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai (2014) and completed a one-year filmmaking diploma programme at the New York Film Academy Abu Dhabi (2015). His thesis film, Beshkara, received its world premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival the same year. Al Madani was born in 1992 in Dubai, where he currently lives and works. Maryam (2019) Director: Mohammed Al Hammadi United Arab Emirates Narrative | 22 min Arabic with English subtitles An ambitious young Emirati’s dream to pursue an acting career in New York is challenged by the sudden of her father and the opposition of her mother, who wants her to marry. Mohammed Al Hammadi is an Emirati filmmaker with a background in directing, writing, acting and producing. He participated in theatre courses at the Sharjah Art Institute (2013–2014) and made his cinematic acting debut in the feature film Abdulla in 2015. He then travelled to Los Angeles to develop his filmmaking skills further at the New York Film Academy (2015–2016). After his return to the UAE, he wrote, directed and produced his sci-fi film The Remaining Time, which had its world premiere in the Muhr Emirati category at the 2017 Dubai International Film Festival. He had an acting role in the feature film Musk, released at the end of 2018. Al Hammadi was born in 1989 in Dubai, where he currently lives and works. Programme 2 Saturday, 19 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema Saturday, 26 January - 3:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts

Spaces of Exception will have its world premiere at Sharjah Film Platform on Saturday, 19 January. The filmmakers will discuss their film after the premiere. Spaces of Exception (2018) Directors: Matt Peterson and Malek Rasamny United States of America, Lebanon and Palestine Documentary | 90 min Arabic and English with English subtitles Profiling the American Indian reservation alongside the Palestinian refugee camp, Spaces of Exception was filmed from 2014 to 2017 in Arizona, New Mexico, New York and South Dakota as well as Lebanon and the West Bank. It is an attempt to understand the significance of the land—its memory and divisions—and the conditions for life, community and sovereignty. Programme 3 Saturday, 19 January - 6:00 pm Africa Hall Tuesday, 22 January - 9:00 pm Africa Hall Youssef Chahine (1926–2008), the acclaimed Egyptian film director, is one of the few Arab filmmakers to gain international recognition. In his more than 40 films, including dramas, comedies and musicals, he addressed issues of power, social oppression, corporate and political corruption, nationalism and religious fundamentalism. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Chahine's death, three of his restored films, each from a different decade, will be screened in collaboration with The Africa Institute at Africa Hall. Programmed by Dr Salah M. Hassan and Hind Mezaina, these films will be shown in three separate programmes. Cairo Station (1958) Director: Youssef Chahine Cast: Youssef Chahine, Hind Rostom, Farid Shawki Egypt Narrative | 73 min Arabic with English subtitles Chahine plays a disabled news vendor whose obsession with a beautiful young lemonade stand vendor leads to violence. Cairo Station marked a new approach to Egyptian cinema in the 1950s, tackling controversial subject matter and drawing on formal and thematic elements from both neo-realism and German expressionism. Programme 4 Saturday, 19 January - 9:00pm Africa Hall Tuesday, 22 January - 6:00pm Africa Hall Osha's Gift (2016) Director: Hind Abdullah United Arab Emirates Documentary | 8 min Arabic with English subtitles Ashwaq Abdullah is a successful Emirati artist who discovers a new sense of what art means by attending an art therapy session and befriending Osha, a very special girl. My Name Is Nour (2018) Director: Haisam Abdelhamed Egypt Documentary ǀ 14 min Arabic with English subtitles

Born with Down syndrome, Nour rebels against the way society looks at her and becomes a heroine. New Year's Eve (2016) Director: Salah Elgazzar Egypt Narrative | 11 min Arabic with English subtitles Two children selling packages of tissues at traffic lights in Cairo dream of spending New Year’s Eve in a theme park as other children do. In order to enter the park, they need to sell enough tissues to buy new shoes. Will they make it?

Baitna Cheshire (2017) Director: Muzamil Elrayah Sudan Documentary | 82 min Arabic with English subtitles This documentary highlights the unique work of the Khartoum Cheshire Home, a comprehensive facility for the care and treatment of disabled children. The centre has a musical ensemble for young people who receive treatment at the facility and participate in the educational programme. Programme 5 Saturday, 19 January - 6:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Wednesday, 23 January - 9:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Dimmed Light (2017) Director: Waleed Alshehhi United Arab Emirates Narrative ǀ 8 min Arabic with English subtitles This film is a poetic response to an unlit wick inside a broken lantern, which is located in an exterior space seemingly destroyed by war or an earthquake. The wick is a source of light in the darkness, but will it be able to restore the lantern’s light so it can shine again? A Regular Day (2018) Director: Abdulla Al Benhumdah Saudi Arabia Narrative ǀ 6 min Arabic with English subtitles In the middle of the night, two men drive into the desert to complete a mysterious errand. Stone on the Road (2016) Director: Mohammed Bloshi Kuwait Narrative ǀ 8 min Arabic with English subtitles The manager of a company tests the applicants for a new job by pretending to be a beggar at the entrance to the company. After encountering their varied reactions, he goes back to the office to meet them and share the results of this surprise assessment. Chess Turn (2017) Director: Ramy Ayman Egypt Narrative | 15 min Arabic with English subtitles

Judge Hazem Al Hawari refuses to take a bribe from Haj Mahmoud Al Qassas and his corrupt lawyer Munir Makram, which they offer in exchange for the release of Haj Al Qassas’ son. Reporting them to the police makes Al Hawari the target of an assassin. Will he survive? Human (2017) Director: Issam Taachit Algeria Narrative | 7 min Arabic with English subtitles A young boy with Down syndrome goes to a stadium to play football, only to be bullied and pushed into the grass. Feeling sad, he lies down on the grass and dreams of a world full of children with Down syndrome. He wakes to a pleasant surprise. Balloons (2018) Director: Mohamed Mokhtar Egypt Narrative ǀ 6 min Arabic with English subtitles Despite his limited means, a father wants to surprise his son with helium balloons on his birthday. This animated film revolves around a moment of excitement. Straight Outta Cairo (2018) Director: Mohamed Higazy Egypt Documentary | 15 min Arabic with English subtitles Egyptian documentary film examines the artistic environment of the underground independent art scene in Cairo through the experience of four artists. In the Name of God 333 (2018) Director: Abdelrahman Nached Egypt Experimental | 5 min Arabic with English subtitles This experimental film simulates perceptions and self-reflection in an attempt to translate internal conflicts and alienation to the screen. The director believes that failure on both personal and national levels can best be reflected in the Arabic song ق راح تغرب‘ .(2014) [If you go east, you will find yourself going west] ’شر Asphalt (2016) Director: Ali Hammoud Lebanon Documentary | 70 min Arabic with English subtitles Two truck drivers, one Lebanese and one Egyptian, make their living on asphalt roads that stretch miles across the ever-changing Arab landscape. Asphalt takes viewers on a journey to examine the subtle relationship between man and machine, providing a reflection on life from behind the wheel. Programme 6 Saturday, 19 January - 9:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Wednesday, 23 January - 6:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Wudu (2017) Director: Ahmed Hasan Ahmed United Arab Emirates

Narrative | 22 min Arabic with English subtitles Baheet is a cook celebrating delicious flavours by day and an oud musician by night. Bahia is an undertaker working with perfumes, scents and camphor who lives with death every day. Two people with strikingly different jobs reside under one roof, but their intellectual differences and lifestyles come between them. Birth (2017) Director: Abdulla Hasan United Arab Emirates Narrative | 82 min Arabic with English subtitles On the same day, death and birth bring a family together in their mountain village. As they commemorate the burial day of martyrs and celebrate a birth, a mother worries about her camel, a father is involved in a trip with a silent man, and their son is infatuated by football star Ronaldo. My Father’s House (2018) Director: Noora Al Musallam Kuwait Narrative | 14 min Arabic with English subtitles Musaed and his father struggle about whether to demolish his father’s house in Kuwait, with Musaed wondering if building a restaurant complex instead of keeping the house would be an opportunity to start a new life. His father’s stubbornness and attachment to his abandoned house grow, triggering an emotional discourse throughout the film. Female scream (2014) Director: Nasser Altamimi United Arab Emirates Narrative ǀ 16 min Arabic with English subtitles One minute and 34 seconds of this film is a female scream. The narrative revolves around a girl who is held hostage to a traditional social ideology that denies her humanity and makes her captive to doubts and fear of other people’s comments. Her family fails to accept that she has been sexually assaulted. Madness of Fame (2018) Director: Aly Kassem United Arab Emirates Narrative ǀ 7 min Arabic with English subtitles Ghadeer and Bassem are social media stars who rely on advertising to provide for their lavish expenses. Ghadeer goes to great lengths to keep up appearances, even if that means breaking her husband’s legs. Programme 7 Sunday, 20 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema Wednesday, 23 January - 6:00 pm Al Hamra Cinema Staying with the Trouble (2018) Director: Alyona Larionov United Kingdom Experimental ǀ 14 min English The film builds on the unique bond between eagle hunter Kazakh Berkutchi and his eagle Sadak to observe power relations in a world dealing with security crises and hyperconnectivity. Oscillating between control and submission, Berkutchi, Sadak,

a judoist and a border control officer offer viewers their own bodily interpretations of the constantly shifting scales of power. Establishing Eden (2016) Director: Broersen & Lukács The Netherlands Experimental | 10 min No dialogue Broersen & Lukács focus on the establishing shot: the moment a landscape is identified and becomes one of the main protagonists in a film. The filmmakers travelled to New Zealand, setting for the film series ‘The Lord of the Rings’, to capture many possible realities, an illusionary Eden that falls apart as easily as it comes together. WHOLY (2018) Director: Andrea Dojmi United Kingdom Experimental | 12 min English WHOLY is a womb, a film made in a state of awakening that follows the synchronicity of life with footage made over the course of five years. Characters and landscapes intertwine in a complex labyrinth to shape a portrait of humanity and the inner dimension between the physical and the spiritual. Nowhere (2018) Director: Neli Ružić Croatia Experimental | 18 min Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles Nowhere explores the personal experience of departing, returning and rebuilding identity. Neli Ružić’s sculpture Before the Dawn and Bogdan Bogdanović’s monument The Guardian of Freedom, installed at the Klis Fortress at different times, are the backbones of this film, triggering a kind of time archaeology and reactivating an invisible and possibly erased history. Sisyphus (2017) Director: Driss Aroussi France Experimental | 12 min Arabic with English subtitles In the desert, a man extracts stones from a mountain and breaks them. In his perpetual labour, he meditates upon life and death. As Sovereign as Love (2017) Director: David K Ross Canada Experimental | 13 min English with Arabic subtitles As Sovereign as Love is a guided cinematic tour of Montreal’s Parc Jean Drapeau, the former site of the Expo 67 world's fair. The screenplay was drawn from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1939 memoir, Terre des hommes, which provides uncanny descriptions of the park as it exists today. KILAUEA: Pele's Domain (2018) Director: JoAnn Gillerman United States of America Experimental | 29 min English Shot over three decades on location at Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes and Pele’s home, this film interweaves Hawaiian culture, science and images of Kilauea from the ground, air and sea. This is the story of Pele reclaiming her land, told from the perspective of an indigenous Hawaiian woman at an evacuation centre. Tropical Malaise: Prologue (2017)

Director: Domingo Castillo United States of America Experimental | 19 min English with Arabic subtitles This site-specific film examines life on earth 500 million years in the future, after the end of human existence. Utilising the material logic of architectural rendering as it pertains to the current development of Miami, the film invites a sense of reified reality, where renderings, through the event of their creation, become concrete reality. On Familiar Waters (2018) Director: Rita Mahfouz Lebanon Experimental | 8 min English with Arabic subtitles An assembled voice-over, originally extracted from film scenes revolving around a ship or the sea, portrays a drowned city, while images of buildings, cars, motorcycles, people, dirt, cigarette butts and concrete overlap on a surface of water. The video explores an intermediate dimension where the distinction between background and foreground disappears. The Colour of the Current (2017) Directors: Rodrigo Luque and Marcelo Sandoval Peru Documentary ǀ 10 min Spanish with English subtitles In March 2017, the weather phenomenon El Niño Costero devastated many cities and villages in Peru. This film tells the story of Erick Valencia, an artist from one of the most affected rural villages in the country, focusing on his efforts to overcome his plight and his relationship to art. Neromanna (2017) Directors: Sotiris Tsiganos and Ionian Bisai Greece Experimental | 9 min Greek with English subtitles The village Kallio was expropriated by the government in 1969 and covered in 1981 by the water of an artificial lake created by the Mornos Dam for use as a reservoir for the city of Athens. These actions resulted in the village community being dissolved and relocated elsewhere. Programme 8 Sunday, 20 January - 6:00 pm Africa Hall Thursday, 24 January - 9:00 pm Africa Hall Leave Us Be (2016) Director: Sara Aboubakr Tallawi Egypt Experimental | 13 min Arabic with English subtitles A low-income family group, whose members do not speak, suddenly appears in a Cairo neighbourhood, only to be chased away by everyone but one young woman. Will they try to stay? Not Yet (2017) Director: Bandar Sawai Jordan Experimental ǀ 17 min Arabic with English subtitles In this crime story, a man is accused of killing a resident of his building. Can the accused prove his innocence?

The Father Might Die at the End (2017) Director: Abdulrahman Salem Egypt Narrative | 7 min Arabic with English subtitles After her mother’s death, a teenage girl is living in Cairo with her elderly father, but the two family members are having immense trouble connecting with one another. One day the girl decides the time has come to kill her father. Sama (2017) Director: Hind Anabtawi United Arab Emirates Narrative | 21 min Arabic with English subtitles Sama is in denial over the recent death of her twin brother, Mousa. On their birthday, she decides to visit his grave for the first time in order to fulfil an old promise. She sneaks into the graveyard, knowing she is not allowed to be there. Mohammed Rafi Fan Blog (2017) Director: Nihaal Faizal India Documentary | 31 min Malayalam with English subtitles Mohammed Rafi Fan Blog examines the links between the director’s paternal family and the legendary Bollywood playback singer Mohammed Rafi. The film traces stories around lost recordings of Rafi’s performance at the director’s grandparents’ wedding and his uncle’s blog about the singer, which was deleted in 2014. I Have a Picture: Film No. 1001 in the Life of the Oldest Extra in the World (2018) Director: Mohamed Zedan Egypt Documentary | 72 min Arabic with English subtitles Through the interactions between two film directors and a longtime film extra, this documentary questions the distinction between real and fake. A game of power between assistant director and director leads to the realisation that we all live our lives as extras, ‘accessories’ in the background who wait for the chance to become a star. Programme 9 Sunday, 20 January - 9:00 pm Africa Hall Thursday, 24 January - 6:00 pm Africa Hall Youssef Chahine (1926–2008), the acclaimed Egyptian film director, is one of the few Arab filmmakers to gain international recognition. In his more than 40 films, including dramas, comedies and musicals, he addressed issues of power, social oppression, corporate and political corruption, nationalism and religious fundamentalism. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Chahine's death, three of his restored films, each from a different decade, will be screened in collaboration with The Africa Institute at Africa Hall. Programmed by Dr Salah M. Hassan and Hind Mezaina, these films will be shown in three separate programmes. The Land (1969) Director: Youssef Chahine Cast: Nagwa Ibrahim, Ezzat Al Alayli, Mahmoud El Meligy, Yehia Chahine, Hamdi Ahmed, Tawfiq El Dikn, Ali Al Sherif Egypt Narrative | 130 min Arabic with English subtitles

The Land traces the struggle of a group of peasant farmers in the 1930s to protect their fields and their livelihoods from a corrupt pasha. Adapted by Chahine from a novel published soon after Egypt’s 1952 revolution, the film offers a rallying cry for an Arab world demoralised by the Israeli expansion of the 1960s. Programme 10 Sunday, 20 January - 6:00 pm Al Hamra Cinema Wednesday, 23 January - 9:00 pm Al Hamra Cinema Eye Test (2017) Director: Sudha Padmaja Francis India Narrative ǀ 15 min Malayalam with English subtitles Eye Test explores the affective atmosphere of a mother-daughter relationship, the mother’s death and the daughter’s bereavement through the realm of memory. The narrative delves into the mindscape of 27-year-old Nivedita when she visits an eye clinic. The clinic becomes a sensorial space for her, invoking memories of her single mother and her own lonely childhood. A Stroll Down Sunflower Lane (2016) Director: Mayye Zayed Egypt Experimental | 14 min Arabic with English subtitles An old grandfather, a little granddaughter, an old house and some glimpses of memory. As he was getting older and losing his memories, she was growing up and building hers. The filmmaker uses actors, TK tape recordings, and Super 8 and VHS film from family members to reenact her memories of her late grandfather. Cursed (2009) Director: Samer Houssein Egypt Experimental | 3 min No dialogue In this 2D animated film, a young vampire risks his life to play with other children like a normal human child. He fears death from exposure to sunlight because his mother died in that way, but neither his fear not his father’s wish that he become a typical vampire prevents him from following his beliefs. Big Willow (2013) Director: Jared Katsiane United States of America Narrative | 11 min English Blurring the line between dramatic narrative and observational documentary, Big Willow offers an elliptical account of an aspiring artist facing the impending destruction of his favorite subject. Cherries (2017) Director: Dubravka Turic Croatia Narrative | 29 min Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles Family tensions are eroding what should have been a carefree summer for ten-year-old Jakov. Shielded by his innocence, Jakov does not understand the cause of these troubles, but he can sense a profound injustice in the actions of the grown-ups. Tragic events incite his emotional revolt but also feelings of guilt.

Wintry Spring (2015) Director: Mohamed Kamel Egypt Narrative | 16 min Arabic with English subtitles Nour is a schoolgirl who lives alone with her widowed father. She goes through a crisis on the arrival of her puberty but cannot tell her father, who in turn does not understand the changes that have occurred in her life. Tension results between father and daughter. The Queen's Pink (2016) Director: Jayant Dasgupta India Narrative ǀ 15 min Hindi with English subtitles In the early 1970s, young Shekhar grapples with issues of independence, time and transposition. A chance encounter with a strikingly mysterious woman turns to infatuation, slowly morphing into a flood-laden ocean of desire that surges with colours, emotions and the human touch. The Queen's Pink stirs the sediments of human soul and skin. Alexandria (2018) Director: Ahmed Tag Mohamed Egypt Narrative | 6 min Arabic with English subtitles In a coffee house on a rainy day, a young man in his mid-twenties recalls memories of his city, Alexandria, and his relationship to it. Under the Sky (2015) Director: Yamen Abd Alnour Egypt Documentary | 40 min Arabic with English subtitles Egypt is one of the many countries that have welcomed Syrian immigrants during the deadly war. In this documentary, Syrians in Cairo talk about their inner conflicts, their feelings about losing Syria and the degree to which they have mentally and physically adapted to the new culture and its challenges. Programme 11 Sunday, 20 January - 9:00 pm Al Hamra Cinema Tuesday, 22 January - 6:00 pm Al Hamra Cinema TRAMA (2018) Director: Will Fredo Germany Experimental ǀ 8 min English Framed around the tumultuous history of Guatemala, TRAMA blends scenes from telenovelas, social media and news to investigate intersections between drama, trauma, politics and fiction. Central to the film are the questions of who influences whom, what is real, what is performed and how Latin American performativity has been appropriated for political ends. Le Marché Oriental (2008) Director: James Webb South Africa Experimental | 3 min Arabic with English subtitles

This film is a two-minute intervention inside Cape Town’s disused Oriental Plaza, an apartheid-era shopping mall located in District Six, one of the most politically charged areas in South Africa. A few weeks prior to its demolition, Sheikh Mogamat Moerat is invited to perform the call to prayer inside the empty mall. The dust doesn't want to come out of the Esqueleto (2018) Directors: Daniel Santiso and Max William Morais Brazil Documentary ǀ 20 min Portuguese with English subtitles Four inhabitants of the state of Rio de Janeiro share their stories of the current removals happening in the Metrô-Mangueira community. These narratives stem from an encounter with images of the removal of the Esqueleto community in that same place five decades earlier. Summer Before Springs End (2016) Director: Terence Price II United States of America Experimental | 9 min English with Arabic subtitles A young man dreaming of a perfect day suddenly gets hit with a harsh reality that tampers with his views on the best season of the year. How to Make an Image (2018) Director: Eshan Rafi Canada Experimental | 16 min English Centring around a 1989 home video shot by the director’s uncle in Karachi, this film deals with questions of representation. Through acts of reading, recoding and repetition, the work asks what it means to be looked at when acts of looking are mediated by, and made possible through, relationships of power. Radio Ghetto Relay (2016) Director: Alessandra Ferrini United Kingdom Experimental ǀ 16 min Italian with English subtitles Radio Ghetto Free Voices is a pirate radio station that gives a voice to the dwellers of the Gran Ghetto of Rignano (Apulia, Italy), a shantytown that, until recently, housed thousands of West African migrants. Heavily exploited in agricultural work, they are able to share their experiences through the radio. There Was Nothing (2017) Director: Yaminay Chaudhri Pakistan Experimental | 15 min Urdu with English subtitles Set in the context of urban renewal encroaching upon one of Karachi’s most magical public spaces, Seaview Beach, the film frames a series of ‘side’ conversations with about-to-be-displaced beach vendors amid the choreography of their surreal LED-lit beach buggies, which bend the real and the present into a series of future imaginaries of aspiration. Home Abroad (2017) Director: Boan Wang Belgium Documentary ǀ 11 min Mandarin with English subtitles A complicated political situation drives a Taiwanese filmmaker to leave his country. Although studying and living in Belgium provides him with a sense of liberty and stability, feeling that he does not belong makes him homesick. Through self-reflection and self-questioning, he investigates his identity crisis as a Taiwanese millennial.

1991 (2018) Director: Saif Alsaegh United States of America Documentary | 12 min Arabic with English subtitles 1991 revolves around a FaceTime phone conversation between the filmmaker, an Iraqi asylum-seeker living in the United States, and his mother, Bushra Alsaegh, an Iraqi immigrant living in Turkey while she awaits approval to immigrate to the United States. The film shows how a relationship can become virtual and symbolic across forced distance. A Vacation (2018) Director: Deniz Eroglu Turkey Narrative | 29 min Turkish with English subtitles In this collaboration between the director and the actor Hüseyin Isçi, the director attempts to convey Isçi’s current existential conditions. The film examines the six-month imprisonment of the actor on suspicion of supporting the 2016 coup d’etat in Turkey and his fear of being indicted. And What Is the Summer Saying? (2018) Director: Payal Kapadia India Experimental | 23 min Marathi with English subtitles Namdeo has learnt to live off the forest from his father, searching for honey in the treetops. When afternoon descends on his small village, its women whisper little secrets of their lost loves. A strange smoke rises from the ground, like a dream of another time. Programme 12 Sunday, 20 January - 6:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Tuesday, 22 January - 9:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Time Spy (2015) Director: Sun Xun China Experimental | 10 min No dialogue Chimerical images such as a violin with wings come together in this 3D animated film created from thousands of individually hand-carved woodcuts. Hundreds of Chinese art students assisted the director in carving each frame of the film, juxtaposing traditional and analogue illustrations to explore the nature of time and how we try to make sense of it. Print More Newspapers (2015) Director: Youngjae Lih Sweden Experimental | 8 min Italian This work links unconscious mental processes to industrial automation. It explores the different stages of a large manufacturing system, conducting both a mechanical and anatomical dissection that seeks to conceal the abstract movements of the mind that can also be found in the automatic movements of the machine. Chronoscope, 1952 or 1953, 11pm. (I) (2017) Director: Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck Germany Documentary ǀ 34 min

English Craftily edited broadcast footage from CBS’s Longines-sponsored public affairs show from the early years of American television covers issues such as the Korean War, the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian crisis and the draft of the United Nations Human Rights Charter. Tonight's Programme (2017) Director: Ali Eyal Iraq Experimental | 15 min English Tonight’s Programme toys with history to construct a new realm that merges Duke Ellington’s 1963 performance at Baghdad’s Khuld Hall with Saddam Hussein’s bloody coup in the same space 16 years later. Eyal creates a fictional space to provide a different history and a different world for the victims in Khuld Hall. 2001: PRESSURE MAKES DIAMONDS (2018) Director: Kazim Rashid United Kingdom Experimental | 13 min English 2001: PRESSURE MAKES DIAMONDS is a video work exploring the so-called ‘War on Terror’ after the events of 2001 and the destruction of brown and Muslim identities globally. The narrative around second and third generation migrants of South Asian, Middle Eastern and Muslim descent changed forever in that year. Unexploded Ordnance (2018) Director: Sikarnt Skoolisariyaporn Canada Experimental | 30 min Gan Chinese with English subtitles Realised during a journey on a cargo ship from Vancouver to Shanghai in 2017, this project explores the realm of the ocean, the lifeblood of the 21st-century economy, and reflects on the relationship between the ocean and the alienation of labour, space-time and representation in our contemporary era. If I Steal the Sea from You (2018) Director: Ro Caminal Spain Narrative | 16 min French with English and Arabic subtitles This film reflects on the material, physical and emotional exploitation of the port of Algiers by French colonial troops, focusing particularly on the Kasbah district of the city. It explores what the Kasbah has represented in the past and present and looks to an uncertain future under threat from globalisation. Your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba (2017) Director: Razan AlSalah Lebanon Experimental | 7 min Arabic with English subtitles A Palestinian grandmother returns to her hometown of Haifa through Google Street View, the only way she can see Palestine today. Necessity Has No Law (2017) Director: Ahmed Hamed Egypt Documentary ǀ 6 min Arabic with English subtitles

Fourteen-year-old Gamal does not have dreams and ambitions for the future. He works from dusk until dawn in a brick factory alongside older men who are ready to retire. Sharing the sharp wit and big heart of his compatriots, Gamal offers viewers a glimpse into his life in a small Egyptian city. As My Father Was (2018) Director: Muslim Habib Iraq Documentary | 14 min Arabic with English subtitles Ali, an 11-year-old Kurdish boy, returns to Iraq with his family after being in exile. He embarks on a journey to obtain an Iraqi identity card, which he must have to enrol in school. Programme 13 Sunday, 20 January - 9:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Friday, 25 January - 6:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts N.O.M.A. - Ernesto Shikhani (2004) Director: Carlos Manuel Cabral da Silva Nunes Portugal Documentary | 16 min Portuguese with English subtitles This video about the work and artistic path of Ernesto Shikhani (1934-2010), an artist from Mozambique, is part of the documentary series on contemporary art in a global perspective titled ‘N.O.M.A.’, which Carlos Cabral Nunes has directed since 1999. The series is produced by the Perve Multimedia Collective and supported by the Operational Programme Knowledge Society - POS-C. Ward B12 (2018) Director: Becky Beaker Zambia Documentary | 18 min English Highlighting the need for improvements in women’s healthcare, this hyper-realistic behind-the-scenes look at the low cost labour ward B12 in the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia follows the patients, doctors, caregivers and midwives as their days intersect and unfold into a powerful narrative about determination, strength, life and loss. Arise (2013) Director: Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen India Documentary | 40 min Hindi with English subtitles Hari, Freezak and Sandeep from Khirkri, New Delhi are part of a rap and breakdancing group called Madness Crew, which they formed with other youths from their neighbourhood. Despite poor living standards and limited opportunities, the three youths are striving for higher ground, and their art provides them with glimpses of autonomy. Who is Now Lying (2017) Director: Muhamad Erlangga Fauzan Indonesia Experimental | 72 min Malay/Indonesian with English subtitles Jembeng is an unemployed young man who lives at home with his mother. He just lazes around, like a parasite. One night he has a terrifying dream in which a strange creature rebukes him for his idleness. Jembeng wakes up to possible new beginnings. Programme 14

Monday, 21 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema Friday, 25 January - 6:00 pm Africa Hall The Other (2017) Director: Bettina Grossenbacher Switzerland Experimental | 14 min No dialogue A young woman enters a room, looks around and gazes into the garden. We suspect something is amiss. A colourful demon stares at us. A chair exhales, and suddenly the world seems to have been upended. We do not know if the woman is alone in the room or in the company of a doppelgänger. A Blink of an Eye (2017) Director: Fatima Al Banawi Saudi Arabia Experimental | 8 min Arabic with English subtitles Perhaps it is moments that occur in the blink of an eye that make an everyday story into a story worth sharing. This film presents five stories from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia that embody the lives of strangers who unite in a moment. Clams Casino (2018) Director: Pam Nasr United States of America Narrative ǀ 11 min English Clams Casino interweaves the lives of four Latina women. Arcelia is desperate to connect with her self-involved mother, Gladys, who is a harsh critic. Rocío battles with her secretive teenage daughter, Lourdes. Both daughters use technology to fill the void, but will they find a way to genuinely connect? Before I Forget (2018) Director: Mariam Mekiwi Germany Experimental | 31 min Arabic with English subtitles In this science fiction story set in a coastal region, the water level is rising, a captain disappears, a disciple takes a journey to cut off an internet cable, an amphibian woman appears at the shore and a scientist tries to gather members of a secret society of amphibians to save the world. Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2017) Director: Tourmaline and Sasha Gilbert Wortzel United States of America Narrative | 15 min English Happy Birthday, Marsha! commemorates Black trans activist and performer Marsha ‘Pay It No Mind’ Johnson and her role in instigating the 1969 anti-police riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York. The film interweaves imagined scenes with found archival footage to counter the endemic erasure of trans women of colour from narratives of political resistance. Ephemera (2017) Director: Thanh Thao Ho Vietnam Narrative | 22 min Vietnamese with English subtitles

A young girl has a mysterious reason for suddenly becoming intimate with a wanderer who only a minute before had disgusted her. A Passage Between Two Points (2017) Director: Lamis Souliman France Experimental | 10 min No dialogue A girl draws her own place in life with the colour red and searches for a path between two points in time. She moves along a very fine line between outer reality and her own reality/universe. an experi-mental e-motion picture (2018) Director: Noura A. Rahman Egypt Experimental | 5 min Arabic with English subtitles This non-narrative experimental film focuses on visual and auricular expressions of negative states of mind that are related to mental and emotional health, specifically anxiety and depression. Still Life After Death (2018) Director: Sandra Powers United States of America Experimental | 11 min English This musical film explores the Cambodian Buddhist ritual in which a monk helps a dying person leave life behind. It features a musical composition written by the Cambodian composer Chinary Ung and performed by Stacey Fraser. In-Between (2018) Director: Sahar El Echi Tunisia Experimental | 6 min Arabic with English subtitles It is through the strange daily routine of a persona confined at home that the painful tension of being manifests itself in its most radical forms. Between staying and leaving, sleeping and waking up, the persona becomes haunted by its own specter as photographs, dates, voices, travel diaries and childhood memories are intertwined and juxtaposed. Color It Yellow (2018) Director: Leen Awad Jordan Documentary | 10 min English with Arabic subtitles This poetic documentary focuses on one of the many stories of women surviving violence. Dania, a courageous college girl, shares how she fell victim to several forms of abuse by her boyfriend, how she found strength through ballet dancing and how the experience affected her family. Programme 15 Monday, 21 January - 6:00pm Africa Hall Thursday, 24 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema Naqlah (2017) Director: Yousef Al Bagshi Kuwait Narrative | 8 min Arabic with English subtitles

During a devastating war, a young orphan living with his mother tries to put an end to the pain he suffers because of his disability. Suddenly paranormal activity disrupts the world he lives in. Were his actions the cause? Petals (2018) Director: Ghofran Gouda United Kingdom Narrative ǀ 8 min English with Arabic subtitles Petals is inspired by a true story. Three of Emily's sons go to war. She loses two of them, and the third goes missing. After the war, she contacts the military authorities and the Red Cross for help in finding her third son. Will she finally get an answer? Preemptive Listening (Part 1: The Fork in the Road) (2018) Director: Aura Satz United Kingdom Experimental | 9 min English For the first part of a project on sonic obedience and disobedience, which uses the trope of a siren, trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj has composed a new siren sound using circular breathing, and actor and activist Khalid Abdalla has written about the siren as the emblematic sound of resistance, oppression and lost futures during the Arab Spring. Prototype (2017) Director: Wesley Fawcett Creigh United States of America Experimental | 6 min English Sourced from experiences both real and imagined, Prototype is an experiment in collaboration across age groups that tackles the complex topics of border culture and politics. To make this film, local artists, educators and youth groups worked together to explore the themes of MOCA Tucson’s fall 2017 exhibition Nothing to Declare: Transnational Narratives. See More Glass (2018) Director: Ali Heraize Canada Narrative | 11 min English Michael, a war veteran, grapples with a heavy conscience as his relationship with his wife and family deteriorates. Unable to stay home, reminded of his pain at every corner, he seeks solitude on a beach, only to meet a girl who offers him a gift that helps him confront his past. Baghdad Photographer (2017) Director: Mejd Hameed Iraq Experimental ǀ 4 min No dialogue Baghdad Photographer examines the wars that have taken place in Iraq and their effect on society, here represented by the family. Without victory in the war, the killing and aftermath generate more tragedy in a continuous series of disasters, which result in broken families and more orphans with no clear future. Shouted from the Rooftops (2017) Director: Beri Shalmashi The Netherlands Narrative | 7 min Kurdish with English Subtitles This romantic story is set in the heart of a war-torn Kurdish town. When Sherin leaves to fight, her anguished lover, Ferhat, stays behind awaiting her return. The Color Remains the Same (2015)

Director: Ali El-Darsa Canada Experimental | 13 min Arabic with English subtitles Using a cell phone camera as a witness, perhaps an unreliable one, the director calls into question his experiences in Beirut after a 14-year absence. He explores the aesthetics of celebration and conflict and the ways they overlap after a World Cup game and a car explosion that occurred simultaneously in 2014. White Time (2012) Director: Radfan Alqirsh United States of America Experimental | 9 min English A montage of various media, White Time weaves together fictional narrative, documentary/news footage and illustration to depict the inner struggle of reclaiming personal identity in politically hostile times. Video Home System (2018) Director: Sharlene Bamboat Canada Experimental | 19 min English Video Home System traces the convergence of popular culture and politics in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. This video showcases connections between pop culture and nationalism and traces how bootleg economies kept the cinema industry alive during periods of censorship. Missing My Home (2014) Director: Amjad Kawish Farajie Iraq Experimental ǀ 5 min Arabic with English subtitles I miss my home... remembering my childhood, my toys, my memories… searching for them on Google Earth! Listening to the voices in my head: my mother's wailing, my father’s crying... Looking for my infancy that has been tarnished and damaged by wars, and for the dream of the boy over there. A Room Without Mirrors (2018) Director: Kwang-Ju Son South Korea Experimental ǀ 11 min Korean with English subtitles A Room Without Mirrors tells the story of a hidden bunker, personified as a fictitious political prisoner with no memory of the past. During years of interrogation, the Agency forces the bunker to fabricate a history. This film considers how memory cannot reconstruct the original images of the past, but it can trace how the past is signified or forgotten. First day of school (2018) Director: Aram Abdulrahim Syria Narrative | 8 min Arabic The war in Syria is portrayed through the eyes of two children who are attending their first day of school. Their fates intersect. Love (2017) Director: Waddah Alfahed Syria Documentary ǀ 12 min Arabic with English subtitles

After two and half years of war and the siege in Homs, an old couple return to their home and discover the damage the war has caused. While going deeper into the ruins of the city, they uplift us with their unique story and love. Souvenir in Exile (2018) Director: Almokhtar Karboua Algeria Documentary | 31 min Arabic with English subtitles After the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, the pro-Vichy government arrested a group of anti-Nazi rebels and interned them in a detention centre in southern Algeria. Among these exiles at Ein Asrar camp in Djelfa was a global intellectual figure who experienced an incident that had a great impact on her life. Programme 16 Monday, 21 January - 9:00 pm Africa Hall Saturday, 26 January - 3:00 pm Africa Hall Youssef Chahine (1926–2008), the acclaimed Egyptian film director, is one of the few Arab filmmakers to gain international recognition. In his more than 40 films, including dramas, comedies and musicals, he addressed issues of power, social oppression, corporate and political corruption, nationalism and religious fundamentalism. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Chahine's death, three of his restored films, each from a different decade, will be screened in collaboration with The Africa Institute at Africa Hall. Programmed by Dr Salah M. Hassan and Hind Mezaina, these films will be shown in three separate programmes. The Sixth Day (1986) Director: Youssef Chahine Cast: Dalida, Mohsen Mohy El Deen, Youssef Chahine Egypt Narrative ǀ 105 min Arabic with English subtitles Based on the novel by Andrée Chedid, the film is set during the Egyptian cholera epidemic of 1947. Sadika takes care of her bedridden husband and her cholera-infected son. She develops a relationship with the young street performer Okka, whose life-affirming spirit is a welcome challenge to the atmosphere of death that overwhelms her impoverished Cairo neighbourhood. Programme 17 Monday, 21 January - 6:00 pm Al Hamra Cinema Friday, 25 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema Unfinished Business (2017) Director: Bojan Fajfric The Netherlands Experimental ǀ 18 min English In an old Kunstzaal, the distinction between past, present and future is unclear—time has broken down. An artist intensely resists his last days by remaking fragments of his life. Fiction intertwines with reconstructed personal history as the film attempts to make sense of his desires and traumas. Pangaea (2015) Director: Emma Rozanski Bosnia and Herzegovina Experimental | 9 min

Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles Dementia draws a woman into a world of memory loops, where she loses her love, her spirit, her present and her past. Encounters with Silence (2016) Director: Janus Victoria Japan and Philippines Documentary | 30 min Japanese with English subtitles The lonely death, or kodokushi, has become hauntingly common in Japan. The filmmaker tackles this sensitive subject through encounters with a man who cleans the apartments of those who die alone, a photographer who documents the aftermath of the deaths, an elderly woman fiercely protective of her independence, and an artist who sings to pierce the stillness. The Lost Object (2016) Director: Sebastián Díaz Morales The Netherlands Experimental | 15 min No dialogue The Lost Object is the final video in a trilogy that examines the complex mechanisms involved in how the constructed nature of reality is perceived and how this construction is performed, both in the realm of our imagination and in film. The director approaches film as a ‘factory of simulacra’. No, I Was Thinking of Life (CC) (2018) Director: Mona Varichon United States of America Experimental | 12 min English The director and her mother engage in a dialogue about filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who is invoked by both parties to express their own ideas. The closed captioned format reflects the internal translation that takes place when a speaker and receiver exist in distinct contexts, an embodied translation rather than a merely functional one. Madame Cléante will not go to the graveyard (2016) Director: Pamela Varela French Guiana Narrative | 39 min Haitian Creole with English subtitles Amidst a carnival in French Guiana, two young métis [mixed race] brothers, Emmanuel and Léon, attend the funeral of their grandmother, Cléante. As they reminisce about the past, the brothers’ childhood memories resurface and with them some well-hidden secrets. Home Exercises (2017) Director: Sarah Friedland United States of America Experimental | 22 min English Using the formal structure of a home workout video, this hybrid documentary and dance film investigates the gestural habits of aging individuals and looks at the physicality of aging as choreography. In its invitation to viewers to move, the film stages choreographies between the mise-en-scène and the home dweller. Programme 18 Monday, 21 January - 9:00 pm Al Hamra Cinema Wednesday, 23 January - 6:00 pm Africa Hall

Lacuna (2017) Director: Marcia Beatriz Granero Brazil Experimental ǀ 10 min No dialogue Jaque Jolene investigates a cultural space where there was once a pharmaceutical industry, taking with her medicinal plant juices and germinated seeds. Cement X (2018) Director: Lene Vollhardt Germany Experimental | 15 min No dialogue Cement X is a trans-futuristic dystopian desire. It is an ideological hope and lavish embrace of complicity with the disavowed craving for soft oppression. This complicity is a temporal reservoir that is allegedly covered in a resistant mode of existence, cooperating in a single pragmatic technique of denial: self-care. Porosity Valley, Portable Holes (2017) Director: Ayoung Kim Australia Experimental ǀ 21 min English As speculative fiction, Porosity Valley, Portable Holes unfolds narratives that encompass imaginary subterranean geologies as live things, including a quasi-mythical entity named Petra Genetrix, which encounters practical problems while trying to migrate to a different rocky platform. The stories penetrate, push and pull through the porous spaces within underlying geological structures. Glitch Noir - Datasifter Prelude (2015) Director: Cody Healey-Conelly United States of America Experimental | 3 min English Glitch Noir is an animated story set in a vague paranoid future where warfare has been automated, thereby providing plausible deniability to the multinational corporations that finance and profit from weapon sales. The nameless protagonist sifts through the cracks and crevices of the global stream to find the missing son of a client. All About Animals: Director’s Panel Pilot Presentation (2017) Director: Cody Ziglar United States of America Narrative ǀ 11 min English All About Animals is a show revealing truths about animals the government doesn't want you to know. Presented here for the first time and available in varied formats from high quality VHS to digital. Enjoy the crisp 4:3 picture in all its glory! Stick around for the panel featuring the directors of the series. More Love, More Joy, More Mortgage (2018) Directors: Chinar Shah, Leslie Johnson, Smriti Mehra United Kingdom Experimental ǀ 4 min English More Joy, More Love, More Mortgage was made with royalty-free stock footage from websites such as www.shutterstock.com and www.stock.adobe.com, and the soundtrack song was produced by an application that converts text into music. This video is a meditation on the kind of ‘stock footage’ the real estate market tries to sell every day. I’m ± Here (2018) Director: Nadim Choufi United Arab Emirates

Experimental ǀ 5 min Arabic with English subtitles Based on over 500 chat archives from dating applications, I'm ± Here explores how intimacy in multiple Arab countries functions through (in)visibility and a sustained love language. As moving images allude to suggested meeting spots, all discoverable from surveillance cameras, users are operating simultaneously on a platform of connectivity and surveillance. Fables 1 (2018) Director: Wong Ping Hong Kong Experimental ǀ 13 min Mandarin with English subtitles Contemporary fables are staged in a pop-like, bright-coloured imaginary. The characters are inspired by animals and nature, but they interact like humans, tackling the social and psychological problems of our contemporary age. Issues of appearance, love, social media interactions and modern-day phobias clutch at the protagonists’ lives, shaping their faith. Maula Jutt (2015) Director: Haider Ali Jan Pakistan Narrative | 4 min Punjabi with English subtitles Maula Jutt references images from the eponymous film series of the late 1970s and 1980s to communicate the symbolic power of images on the collective psyche and their effect on experience and memory. Focusing on vigilante justice against authority and changing gender roles, the film series strongly influenced audience perspectives on war and romantic relationships in Pakistan. The Units of the World According to Semicolon (2011) Director: YoungEun Kim South Korea Experimental ǀ 26 min Korean with English subtitles This film presents 12 punctuation marks, including the colon [:], quotation marks [“ ”], the hyphen [-], the ellipsis […], the arrow [→] and parentheses [(…)]. These marks have specific functions in sentences, but they are silent. In this film, they are given ‘voices’ to represent their respective characters, with the semicolon [;] as narrator. Fade Out (2017) Director: Abdelrahman Alama Egypt Experimental | 9 min English Unobserved relationships exist between sounds, colours, nature, animals and human voices. This film examines these relationships, using symbolism and the words of the ‘father of the atomic bomb’. Witnessing the detonation of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he recalled words from the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ Nanaira (2018) Director: Meera Al Qassimi United Kingdom Experimental | 20 min Shona A waterfall, symbol of a great release of emotion. A woman’s emotions rise as she stands watching from the outside in. She vigorously washes her paintbrush in a glass of water, leading up to a watercolour meditation. She cleanses and flows. Nylon (2016) Director: Ahmed Mohsen Mansour Saudi Arabia Experimental| 2 min English

Prevention policy is one approach to limiting individuals’ freedoms or restricting them from expressing themselves, especially during a period of time that is temporary or finite. The Man in the Bushes (2017) Directors: Vasilios Papaioannu and Emma Piper-Burket United States of America Experimental | 6 min English A filmmaker follows a man as he searches for clues to understand the father he never knew. Armed with a stack of photographs, a street address and the knowledge that the man's father was an astronaut, the two explore their surroundings to unravel the mysteries of living on planet Earth. Programme 19 Monday, 21 January - 6:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Wednesday, 23 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema A Crow Has Been Calling for a Whole Day (2016) Director: Liu Yi China Experimental documentary | 12 min No dialogue The director reflects on a previous visit to India and the influence of time on memory. Regional boundaries disappear, and flowing images possess potential temporality, transforming psychological changes into visual presentation. The magic croaking of the crows runs through the whole city, and the word for yesterday and tomorrow is the same. stealing earth (2018) Director: Karan Shrestha Nepal Documentary | 13 min Nepali with English subtitles stealing earth addresses how the rhetoric of conservation (pertaining to Chitwan National Park, Nepal) is used to enclose land, forests and water for the wealthy and powerful and push the poor farther into the margins. A Poetic Truth in a Pathetic Fallacy (2018) Director: Elise Rasmussen South Africa Experimental | 16 min No dialogue Shot on location in South Africa, Dublin and London, this film considers humankind’s fascination with the rhinoceros and ways this animal has been misinterpreted. It explores the urgency to keep this genus from extinction while considering the lingering effects of colonialism, apartheid and collection. When the Body Becomes All Eyes (2017) Director: Anal Shah United States of America Documentary ǀ 29 min Malayalam with English subtitles Woven from observational footage shot at various kalaris [martial arts gyms] in northern Kerala, When the Body Becomes All Eyes is an ethnographic portrait of the ancient south Indian martial art kalaripayattu. The camera’s response to the high-paced action of the martial art sequences transforms the movements into a dance. Reddishblue Memories (2017) Director: Iván Argote

France Documentary | 12 min Spanish with English subtitles Reddishblue Memories speculates on a rumor that the Eastman Kodak Company’s switch from Kodachrome to Ektachrome in the Cold War era of the late 1960s was done for ideological reasons. Over time, Kodachrome photographs became reddish (the color of communism), but the Ektachrome process eventually gave photos a blue tinge. These Silences Are All the Words (2018) Director: Madiha Aijaz Pakistan Experimental | 15 min Urdu with English subtitles These Silences Are All the Words explores the public libraries of Karachi, Pakistan against the backdrop of the city’s changing linguistic landscape. Conversations with both librarians and library users reflect on the shift of language from Urdu and its literary history to English and its associations with ambition and individualism. Ghosts Don't Care If You Believe in Them (2018) Director: Arturo Kameya The Netherlands Experimental | 18 min English This film focuses on the relationship between the origin of objects and the policies to which they are currently subject. It also addresses the relationship between the workers of the Museum of Natural History of Lima and the space in which they work, which is presented as a kind of bureaucratic limbo in reorganisation. I Will Outlive You (2017) Director: Claudia Martínez Garay The Netherlands Experimental | 16 min Quechua with English subtitles At the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, an artist encounters a ceramic vase, more than 1200 years old, that represents a Moche prisoner just as he is about to be sacrificed. The artist speculates on the history of the artefact and the person it depicts. Kings and Thieves (2018) Director: Kianoosh Motallebi The Netherlands Experimental | 4 min No dialogue Kings and Thieves appropriates and brings together symbols from an ancient undeciphered Cretian language and logos of defunct contemporary production companies. Programme 20 Monday, 21 January - 9:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Thursday, 24 January - 6:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Jareedy (2016) Director: Mohamed Hisham United Arab Emirates Narrative | 28 min Nubian with English and Arabic subtitles

Unable to swim, a boy named Konnaf faces his lifelong fear and travels by jareedy [a traditional boat] to a rock in the middle of the Nile. Throughout the journey, Konnaf is guided by Abraz, an old boat craftsman who inspires him with stories of the Nubian past. Hunt in the Woods (2018) Director: Elton de Almeida Brazil Narrative | 20 min Portuguese with English subtitles In the Empire of Brazil, Province of São Paulo, of the 1870s, Amadi, an enslaved Igbo man, runs away from his new ‘owner’, crossing a dangerous forest in search of a Maroon settlement. After him are Matias and Zé Crioulo, two slave catchers with strict orders to capture him at any cost. Cactus Flower (2017) Director: Hala Elkoussy Egypt Narrative | 142 min Arabic with English subtitles Cactus Flower is the story of three strangers who come together after a banal catastrophe leaves them homeless in Cairo, a city on the verge. Programme 21 Tuesday, 22 January - 9:00 pm Mirage City Cinema Friday, 25 January - 9:00 pm Africa Hall Ghost Mode (2018) Director: Sofia Alaoui France Narrative | 16 min French with English subtitles In the suburbs of Paris, a small group of teenagers spend time together during the summer holidays. One day, Kenza, one of the girls from the group, does not appear at the scheduled time. She does not answer her phone, and she is disconnected from all the apps. Kindil el Bahr (2016) Director: Damien Ounouri Kuwait Narrative | 40 min Arabic with English subtitles At the beach with her family, Nfissa, a young mother, is drowned by a group of young men while swimming. Nobody seems to witness her disappearance, and as fear takes over the population, the police suggest that Nfissa may have morphed into a kindil, a nautical creature whose appearances have been reported elsewhere in the region. Unravel (2017) Director: Jean Claire Dy The Philippines Narrative | 27 min Hiligaynon with English subtitles Ligaya unwittingly unravels a wartime secret when filming her Ilonggo uncle’s past life in Mindanao during the tumultuous 1970s. Could this be why her family resists her marrying a Mindanao Muslim? Men with No Name (2017) Director: Nuruzzaman Khan Belgium

Documentary ǀ 12 min Bengali with English subtitles The new face of Europe is encapsulated in the struggles of two Bangladeshi men who had hoped migrating to Portugal would set them on the path to a better life. It becomes clear their reality has more obstacles than anticipated. Léo (2017) Director: Julian Alexander United States of America Narrative | 15 min French with English subtitles Desperate to make money, Léo accepts a job to smuggle a refugee couple through France, but he and the couple have different expectations about their destination. Eventually, Léo is forced to confront the couple, his boss and himself in order to understand how far he is willing to go for people he never intended to help. Friendship Crossroad (2018) Director: Waleed Al Madani Portugal Documentary | 13 min English with Arabic subtitles Friendship adds new interest to the daily lives of two squatters, Michael from Poland and Baba from Bangladesh, who have been living in Lisbon for different periods of time. This documentary offers a view of life as a squatter, focusing on the struggle for survival and art, friendship and wants. River (2018) Director: Bagane Fiola The Philippines Narrative | 22 min Filipino with English subtitles In two flourishing Moro communities separated by a vast river, there are two brothers who feel a longing that is beyond the reach of their calm and idyllic life. In the end, they seek the river to find peace. Programme 22 Tuesday, 22 January - 6:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Thursday, 24 January - 9:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts The Donkey (2018) Director: Tariq Keblaoui United Kingdom Narrative | 22 min Arabic with English subtitles In ancient Phoenicia, an old man is conned into believing that he has sinned because he has treated another man as a beast of burden for many years. He seeks forgiveness from the gods to relieve himself of his guilt. A Dream (2017) Director: Ghadeer Mohamed Bahrain Narrative ǀ 7 min Arabic with English subtitles Noor and Kawther are childhood friends who share their dreams with one another. Would their friendship be affected by the circumstances of one of their families? Would their dreams be altered by family incidents? And could children have bigger and more mature dreams than adults could ever imagine? Ten Thousand (2018)

Director: Sayed Kassem United Arab Emirates Narrative | 24 min Arabic with English subtitles A group of young Arab boys get excited when they find a banknote. After discovering it is in a foreign currency, they embark on a journey to cash it in and encounter many challenges along the way. They come to realise that friendship is more valuable than money. Mesteka & Rehan (2017) Director: Dina Abd Elsalam Egypt Narrative | 60 min Arabic with English subtitles Mesteka, a 70-year-old Muslim widow, and Rehan, a 67-year-old Christian widower, are neighbours. As their busy children hardly ever visit them, Mesteka and Rehan get used to monotony, loneliness and isolation. They fashion their lives accordingly until tragedy gives way to comedy. Programme 23 Wednesday, 23 January - 9:00 pm Africa Hall Friday, 25 January - 9:00 pm Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts Raheel (2018) Director: Ayat Asadi Rahbar Iran Narrative | 30 min Persian with English subtitles Raheel, an Afghan national, has illegally travelled to Iran to look for her husband, but some problems arise, leaving her no hope to move ahead. Chooka (2018) Directors: Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour and Ryan Ferko Canada Experimental | 21 min Persian with English subtitles Mediated through screens and photography, Chooka weaves original material with elements of archival documentary footage and fragments of films by Bahram Beyzaie to explore the entangled relationships between a stranger and a host, a factory and a village, a film crew and a family, foreign trees and a landscape. Hills Without Names (2018) Director: Hilal Baydarov Azerbaijan Narrative | 93 min Azerbaijani with English subtitles After many years the Traveller returns to his land to again hear the Voice, which can only be heard in that place.