The Gulf Film Festival has announced it is to move to a new home in the Mall of the Emirates for its seventh edition, running from April 9-15.
The festival will be located at Ductac, the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre in the popular mall, with further screenings taking place at Vox Cinemas MoE.
The festival has also announced the first line-up of films for this year’s event. Emirati highlights from the programme so far include Ali F Mostafa’s latest short, Don’t Judge a Subject by its Photograph, which follows Maha, a gallerist in Dubai who tries to convince a famous Indian art critic that the UAE arts scene is alive and buzzing,while Red, Blue, Yellow, by Nujoom Al Ghanem, is a portrait of the pioneering Emirati female artist Najat Makki, recognised not only for her talent but also for the role she plays in society.
Other highlights include the Oscar nominee Sara Ishaq’s second film, The Mulberry House, an intensely personal study of family relationships set against the backdrop of the growing Yemeni revolution and Haider Rashid’s The Deep, in which a young Iraqi man’s dream of playing football is twisted by life in a crime-ridden country. Rashid picked up the Special Jury Prize in the Muhr Arab Short Competition at DIFF’s 10th edition.
[ artslife@thenational.ae ]
