Running from the 11th to the 28th of June, organized by the Arab British Centre and supported by the BFI, the upcoming 10th edition of the festival will feature dozens of screenings in 10 cities across the UK and online through streaming courtesy of Beirut-based site Aflamuna.
With a tag that reads “Past. Present. Perspectives…” this year’s SAFAR Film Festival will kick off with a beloved treasure of Egyptian cinema, the much celebrated 1972 film Watch Out for ZouZou by the late director Hassan el-Imam, in its restored version, a premiere in the UK. It will close with a special preview of the documentary Sudan, Remember Us before the film by Hind Meddeb hits UK cinemas on June 27th, as a TAPE Collective release.
In between, SAFAR will touch on the Queer experience, with Layla by British Iraqi writer/director Amrou Al-Kadhi; on the constant state of flux for communities of the Maghreb, in filmmaker Saïd Hamich’s stunning Across the Sea — BTW, doubling as a producer, Hamich’s Casablanca based company Mont Fleuri produced the Cannes buzzy title Sirât, by Olivier Laxe. But also the impact of the war in Syrian on its inhabitants, in Syrian director Anas Zawahri’s first feature documentary My Memory Is Full of Ghosts; and of course, Palestine — the horrors happening there are too many and too grave to list. Cinema always has a way to procure change, even if that change is simply within ourselves, and this edition of SAFAR will feature titles from Palestinian auteurs, like Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi’s A State of Passion, focusing on British Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah’s work in the emergency rooms in Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals; a Masterclass with celebrated Palestinian artist Mohammad Bakri including a screening of a short film he stars in Upshot (2024) by Maha Haj — Bakri who will also present his 2002 documentary Jenin, Jenin while at SAFAR; a cine-concert exploring rarely seen archival footage of Palestine from the early 20th century; as well as an array of feature and short fiction, documentary and essay films about Palestine.
Standing alongside these features and documentaries are programmes of short films and companion events such as Palestine – A Revised Narrative, a 30-minute film edited from silent footage shot on 35mm by British Forces in Palestine, between 1914 and 1918. Accompanied by sound design from world cinema sound designer extraordinaire Rana Eid and a score by composer Cynthia Zaven (who will provide a live performance), this ALFILM commission is a reflection on the British imperial narrative of this turning point in history and the birth of nation-states in the Middle East.
Last but not least, my favorite film of 2024 by a Palestinian helmer whose vision is still misunderstood by Western festival programmers. Thank You for Banking with Us! (pictured in the header above) by Laila Abbas is a wondrous work of the Seventh Art which focuses on two sisters in Ramallah, unlikely allies due to their different characters and lifestyle choices, who must come together to secure their father’s inheritance, before he is discovered dead and Shariah Law kicks in — with all its masculine favoritisms. The film, thankfully, was recently awarded Best Arab Film by a jury of film critics at a reception in Cannes and hopefully will now find new audiences to love it, as it deserves to be, despite the lack of distribution in key markets.
Amani Hassan, Programme Director, the Arab British Centre, said: “We’ve grown a lot since our first festival in 2012, but what remains unchanged is the core of SAFAR: a commitment to platforming, celebrating, and preserving the legacy of independent Arab Cinema. Cinema that is more powerful, and more needed than ever to show that the Arab world is so much more than the sum of its colonial injustices and imposed external framing.”
The venues will include Ciné Lumière in South Kensington, Barbican, ICA, The Garden Cinema and Genesis Cinema in London, and The Ultimate Picture Palace, Oxford, both The Midlands Art Centre and The Mockingbird Cinema in Birmingham, Hull Independent, Plymouth Arts Cinema, Curzon Clevedon, Chapter, Cardiff, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds, Glasgow Film Theatre and The Contact Theatre, Manchester. SAFAR is supported by the BFI Audience Projects Fund awarding National Lottery funding, the British Council, the Bagri Foundation, the City of London Corporation and the Asfari Foundation.
Rabih El-Khoury, SAFAR Film Festival Curator concluded: “The challenge this year was to be festive and celebrate 10 editions of SAFAR through a classic musical as an opener, a cine-concert and a masterclass with the Palestinian film icon Mohammad Bakri, but also respond to the urgent state of the Arab World today. We present this through screenings and conversations around Palestine, Syria, and Sudan and a special program around Lebanon’s civil war (1975-1990), 50 years after it has torn the country apart.”
For the complete program and to purchase tickets, please visit the SAFAR website.