Arab Film Festival, it's a wrap!

ICE is proud to be associated with the festival that’s driven by a passionate organising committee that draws together the Arab community to share stories previously unseen. The Arab world churns out so many great films with talented actors and filmmakers that it is only fitting for a multicultural nation such as Australia, with a dynamic and proud Arab community, to showcase these quality productions. This year the festival has been described as ‘world class’, ‘fascinating and diverse’ and ‘a raindrop in the desert of the film scene’.

Some of the highlights include opening night at the Riverside Theatre Parramatta, where an enthusiastic crowd of 700 people packed out the cinema to watch City of Life, the very first feature film to come out of the UAE. Director, Ali Mustafa joined us from Dubai for the opening and was engaged in many interviews throughout his stay. Click here to check out his interview with SBS –

12 Angry Lebanese was a hit, with great audience reviews and interest from national broadcasters and film distributors. The gritty and at times confronting storyline had many film goers shed a tear as they left the cinema. The film helped to bring awareness to issues surrounding violence, in particular, incarceration with the faint possibility of redemption. The film started many conversations amongst festival-goers and hopefully also a ripple effect throughout the Arab community and the media.

The short film collection, ‘Makhoulta’ was full of bite-size cinema gems;
drawing a giggle from audiences as a young girl (Rema) breathed in engine fumes with ecstasy as she tried to break into the male-dominated world of car detailing; gasps as 13-year-old Parkour artist, Mohammed, climbed walls with and hurdled impossible obstacles with ease and grace in Ali Kadhim’s docu-film Mohammed; and chuckles wrought with sympathy as an anti-hero watched his life crumble as he tried in vain to grow a moustache and live a normal life like his family and friends.

The simply sweet nuggets of nostalgia, from the Home Made Arab Films project screened this year as a unique edition to the festival. The festival in partnership with the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) collected Arab home movies on 8mm, 16mm and any other format and chose a selection that showed intimate family moments the 40s to the 70s. Thank you to all those who contributed to the collection, your films will now also be forever a part of the National Film and Sound Archives as well as forever in your hearts.

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[Article posted 28 July 2010]