Over the course of a six-day duration, the Amman Film Industry Days orchestrated a sequence of events that encompassed masterclasses, seminars, and discussions involving directors and industry experts.
As an industry guest of the 2023 Amman International Film Festival, it was an exciting privilege to attend the second edition of Amman Projects Market in Jordan from August 19-21. Nestled within the wider film festival (that ran August 15-22) Amman Projects Market – a film industry initiative headed by Bassam Alasad – connects filmmakers working on new projects from across the Arab world with potential funders, partners, and distributors. In the festival’s own words, the market acts “as a launchpad for projects until they reach their final destination, the audience.” Its focal point – a day-long pitching platform on August 19 – revealed an impressive selection of 16 works-in-progress followed by two days of meetings between filmmakers and industry insiders, as participants discussed the presented projects in detail. Representation from non-Jordanian and Jordanian authors was well balanced, thanks to the carefully selected 16 films filtered from a pool of 120 submissions. With so many stand-out projects in varied stages of development, production, and post-production, attendees had plenty of options to choose from.
On the international front, Salah Issad’s epic tale Dogmas ideologically pits two brothers against one another in post-independence Algeria. With an intended budget of $2m, this is a bold project with big ambitions and an action-packed teaser to boot. At the opposite end of the spectrum – in terms of cast size and narrative amplitude – Sameh Alaa’s low-key fiction script When I Close My Eyes I See Your Eyes deftly explores prejudice against homosexuality within Egyptian society. Producer Mark Lotfy lamented that the script was not awarded at the Amman market but acknowledged that its sensitive subject matter might deter some industry players from participating. Still, the director’s impressive claim to fame of having the first Egyptian short film to win the Palme d’Or in the Festival de Cannes Short Film Competition (in 2020) bodes well for the artistic life of this fiction narrative inspired by a real-life incident.
Iraqi filmmaker Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradaji let art imitate life when he conceived the story for his 2022 debut fiction feature Hanging Gardens – which won the Jury Award for Arab Feature Narrative on the festival’s closing night. For Al-Daradaji’s follow-up fiction project – Madness and Honey Days – he delves into an Iraqi insane asylum that functions as a refuge for an outspoken anti-Saddam Hussein regime actor. His Toronto-based Iraqi producer, Maytham Jbara – also an accomplished cinematographer – estimates a budget of just under $900k for their second project together. Hopefully, Telefilm Canada’s ongoing support for their script idea will continue well into the production phase.
Lebanon was well-represented in the Amman Projects Market, too. Michelle Keserwany (a co-writer on Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum) has a new and independently authored fiction project titled Amara – which received multiple market awards. Keserwany wants to take time to find the right partners for her feature directorial debut and sees no reason to rush things as she learns the ropes of international co-production. Earlier in the year, her short film Les Chenilles (co-directed with her sister Noel) won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival. Director Zeina Sfeir – who has returned to filmmaking after repeated stints as a film festival representative in Beirut, Dubai, and Jeddah – presented a poignant family narrative of civil war crimes in the Bekaa Governorate that targeted her relatives in 1976. The ageing protagonist in her documentary The Silence of the Plain has remarkably withstood decades of uncertainty in the kind of place where it’s difficult to imagine such atrocities occurring. In Soraya Mon Amour, the accidental death of celebrated Lebanese film director Maroun Baghdadi almost 30 years ago raises the spectre of a mysterious demise. With filmmaker Nicholas Khoury’s work-in-progress documentary, viewers are let into the life of Maroun Baghdadi’s widow, who opens up about her life before and after the tragic incident. The film contemplates the couple’s personal and professional relations with one another – partially reframed through an ongoing conversation over ZOOM between director Khoury and Soraya.
Palestinian narratives also attracted awards attention in the market – one being Said Taji Farouki’s debut fiction feature Soon We Will Be History Here. Farouki’s Gaza-set script garnered multiple awards from the market and, before the festival’s launch, from the Jordan Film Fund. Another Palestinian project – Germany-based Alex Bakri’s The Last Projectionist (in post-production) – promises a somewhat searing portrait of German NGO involvement in its mission to ‘rescue’ a Palestinian cinema, much to the chagrin of the film’s melancholic main character (the titular ‘last projectionist’).
Narratives revolving around cinema were also featured in the Jordanian lineup with Cinema Kawakeb by veteran filmmaker Mahmoud Massad. In post-production, the film’s alluring interplay of shadow and light within the confines of a rundown cinema belies its humanist subtext – a tender expression of social justice by those with little to offer to those with even less. Other Jordanian projects included Karim Jawad Ariqat’s Idols in the City, Amer Halasa’s Framed, Meina Hawashin’s The Abbas Rule – about Palestinian basketball player Zaid Abbas – and Yazan Melhem’s Evacuation of Petra. All worthy projects with enthusiastic, creative producing teams.
As for the festival’s numerous film screenings, audience attendance was reportedly better than ever. Lively Q&As and overall collegiality between filmmakers kept spirits high on the festival shuttle buses during rush hour traffic and at the nightly rooftop DJ parties. For summertime films and fun in the MENA region, Amman is hard to beat.
