The Hindu : Dubai film fete will focus on global harmony

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 28, 2004

National

National

Dubai film fete will focus on global harmony

By S.R. Ashok Kumar

CHENNAI, MARCH 27. For the first time, Dubai will host an International Film Festival on the themes of cultural understanding and international harmony from December 6 to 11, 2004.

Dubai Media City will conduct the festival under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and the UAE Defence Minister.

It will showcase a wide selection of contemporary and classical global cinema.

The Chairman of the Dubai International Film Festival, Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, recently said that Dubai had always been a cultural crossroad where people from all over the world live together in a peaceful and harmonious environment.

It was a city of film-lovers and he was confident that the timing was now right for Dubai to join the global family of film festival.

Dubai Media city will organise and manage the event and show 80 films from more than 30 countries.

The festival will open and close with six red carpet evening gala screenings on all six nights of the festival with six new films at the Madinat Jumeirah Arabian resort, which has been named as the main festival venue.

There are seven main programmes along with sidebars to make the festival a unique one for the connoisseurs of film art. "Arabian Nights" will show 20 films directed by Arab filmmakers.

"Operational Cultural Bridge" will have15 international films that tell stories which serve to tear down walls of inter-racial prejudice and intolerance and which help to stimulate dialogue and build cross-border and cross-cultural bridges in the post-September 11.

"Bollywood meets Hollywood" has 10 films selected from Bollywood classics and new crossover films.

"Cinema from the subcontinent" has 10 films produced by young and independent filmmakers from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The sidebars will have "Screen on the Green," a collection of four classic films from a celebrated actor. "Directors special retrospective" will be showcasing the work of a distinguished movie director from the Arab world, from Bollywood and Hollywood with two films each.

Arabian Shorts is a selection of 30 Arabian short films. The festival director and CEO, Neil Stephenson, said: "We hope that we can create an event that will stamp its mark on the international film calendar and celebrate excellence in the motion picture arts as well as bring people together through a common love of cinema."

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