2023-11-19 14:40:32
Ahmed Farouk
Published on: Sunday, November 19, 2023 – 4:40 PM | Last updated: Sunday, November 19, 2023 – 4:40 PM
The Red Sea International Film Festival announced the films participating in the “Red Sea Visions” program, through which the festival presents cinematic visions that present new topics through innovative treatment that challenges prevailing opinion and enriches it at the same time, as part of the activities of the third session held in the city of Jeddah during The period from November 30 to December 9.
– The program includes:
* The hidden beauty of Iraq
Directed by Suhaim Omar Khalifa, Jurgen Buedts, and produced by Iraq, Belgium and France
The events revolve around Latif Al-Ani, known as the father of Iraqi photography, who began his career photographing for the Iraqi Petroleum Company magazine in the 1950s, where he documented the emergence of modern, prosperous Iraq. Now, at the age of 86, he continued to photograph during the periods of successive regimes in order to document the country’s heritage. Wonderful, including many places destroyed by wars.
Buoyed by belated recognition from the West as a major photographer in recent years, Latif Al-Ani takes us in this emotional documentary on a journey through his devastated country in search of the subjects he once photographed.
* Donga
Directed by Muhannad Al-Amin, produced by Libya. The events revolve around director “Mohamed”, known as Donga, who, at the age of 19, dives into the 2011 Libyan uprising, armed only with his camera, following growing up under a rule where the only history allowed was an ongoing story regarding the glory of God. Colonel Gaddafi was determined to record everything he saw: Khalifa Haftar’s battles with the regime, the struggle once morest ISIS, in addition to the struggles of daily life, and those moments of humor.
Donga starts enthusiastically, charged with adrenaline, but his feeling changes following everything he goes through, including the mortar shelling from which almost everyone dies. This is a self-documentary, where we see the world through the eyes of the director, with a new vision of his growing understanding of the history of the Arab world, and with his camera only. Director Donga takes us to the heart of the successive conflicts in Libya through this personal documentary.
* In the shadows of Beirut
Directed by Gary Kane, Stephen Gerard Kelly, produced by Lebanon and Ireland, the events take place in the “Sabra” and “Shatila” areas, two poor areas on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital, where more than 30,000 stateless people live today, following having been hosted since 1948. And over a period of 4 years.
In this sensitive documentary, the directors followed 4 families living in desperate conditions, a family in which the 8-year-old Syrian child, Omar, searches in garbage containers to support her following she was forced to flee Syria, a family in which the sacrificial father struggles with his constant addiction to drugs, and a family Another in which a father imprisons his teenage daughter for fear of what might happen to her outside the home, and a Khajiri family gathers around the bed of a child suffering from a painful skin disease, without being able to take him to the hospital, but what is most astonishing is the strength of the love of these desperate people.
* The sea and its waves
Directed by Liana and Renaud, and produced by France and Lebanon, the story of the film takes place in Beirut, that turbulent and still magical city, during a night spent on the sidewalks, where brother “Mansour” and his sister “Najwa” wait anxiously for a boat to arrive to take them to Norway. It is a cinematic poem. Local characters appear at night, each with a story that reveals another side of this wounded culture, but they merge into an observational narrative of events that is at the same time surreal, and rises through an unexpected musical flow, and lights that suddenly illuminate skyscrapers, among people who cannot be understood. Their screams in full.
* Fifty five
Directed by Abdelhay Al-Iraqi and produced by Morocco. The events take place in the summer of 1955, a few months before Morocco gained its independence. 11-year-old Kamal lives in the city of Fez, along with Aisha and her fellow students at the University of Al-Qarawiyyin. Kamal discovers and participates in the struggle for freedom.
It is his coming-of-age story, but it is also a vivid, emotional account of the recovery process of a nation, with its unique culture and dignity. Laraki was inspired by the memories of Moroccan resistance fighters who were part of the painful but necessary struggle once morest colonialism, describing acts of extraordinary heroism and the struggle for women’s rights. And the pursuit of freedom. At the same time, he describes his personal search for freedom from the weight of his own past.
* Inside the yellow cocoon
Directed by Tien An Pham, and produced by Vietnam, Singapore, and France, the events revolve around a young man who is not engaged in life, and is forced to return to reality when his half-sister, “Hanh,” dies in a motorcycle accident, and suddenly, “Thin” (Le Vuong Vu) becomes the sole guardian. On his five-year-old nephew, Dao (Nguyen Thienh), who decides to return him to their village in the remote countryside.
After confirming that Hanh has received a burial according to Christian rituals, he must find Dao’s father, his brother who has been missing for a long time. The search leads him to a chance meeting with a woman he once loved, and she is now a nun. Such meetings With the past, it gradually, but relentlessly, brings it back fully to the present, and the film won the Best First Film award at the Cannes Film Festival.
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