The film festival will open with 'The Last Queen', with the screening held at Ciné Lumiere and followed by a Q&A with co-director Damien Onouri.
Safar Film Festival, which will run from June 29 – July 9, has announced the programme for its eighth edition.
For its eighth edition, the film festival is embarking on a journey through space and time in Arab cinema, mapping the region across a new axis and showcasing films which traverse territories and historical periods.
Founded in 2012, the Safar Film Festival is a festival in the UK dedicated to presenting cinema from across the Arab world. It offers a space for audiences to connect with, explore, and celebrate Arab cinema’s past, present, and future.
Safar Film Festival is run by the Arab British Centre, a London-based charity that works to further understand the Arab world in the UK.
The film festival will travel across London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford and Plymouth.
The programme hones in on films with distinct locations and settings rarely seen on screen. Several filmmakers venture into uncharted geographies to bring their tales to life, while others spin fresh perspectives on the domestic and the familiar. Some revisit the past to better understand their present, using archives, oral history, pop culture and period costumes to uncover forgotten or unheard stories.
Documentaries and fictions transport the public through time to Cairo, Damascus and Beirut: as they were filmed in the 80’s and 90’s by revered filmmakers Youssef Chahine, Borhane Alaouié and Mohamed Malas, and as they are filmed today through new lenses.
A focus on contemporary Moroccan filmmaking presents a cinema not shying away from exploring queerness, classism and segregation, and a special programme of screenings and talks with Palestinian filmmakers and artists commemorates 75 years since the Nakba.
The film festival will open with The Last Queen (2022), with the screening held at Ciné Lumiere and followed by a Q&A with co-director Damien Onouri.
The first work co-directed by Algerian director-actress Adila Bendimerad and French-Algerian director Damien Ounouri, The Last Queen is “a pulsating portrait of a heroine from the past, boast[ing] sumptuous period costumes and sets, well-choreographed fight sequences and strong-willed female characters, all amidst a backdrop of flesh, blood and bones.”
The selected films which will screen include 19B by Egyptian filmmaker Ahmad Abdallah, Palestinian filmmaker Firas Khoury’s Alam, Saudi film Raven Song by Mohammed Al Salman, The Blue Caftan by Maryam Touzani, Sara Suliman’s documentary Heroic Bodies, and The Damned Don’t Cry by director Fyzal Boulifa, among others.
This year’s event will be presented in partnership with the Shubbak Festival of Contemporary Arab Culture, which showcases and supports the diversity of Arab artists’ creativity and innovation.
They will showcase 11 UK premieres, new releases and classic films, plus live events with 15 filmmakers and industry practitioners.
Curated by Rabih El-Khoury, this year’s festival will revolve around the theme of “A journey through space and time”.
