AMMAN — Complete with several red carpets and giant Styrofoam
black irises, last night the Royal Film Commission’s film house in Jabal Amman
filled up with jurors, industry guests, and participating directors. The evening included the final disclosure of
festival winners.
اضافة اعلان
All in all, the film festival’s second
year was a successful expansion from 2020’s inaugural effort. In part because
of the lightened COVID-19 restrictions, the festival was able to screen movies
not just at its drive-in theater at Abdali Boulevard, but at TAJ cinemas as
well.
“I think we managed to live up to our
ambitions, of course we would like it to grow further but we trust that it
should always keep its identity as it is,” said festival director Nada Doumani.
Doumani plans on expanding the festival even more in 2022, with
hopes of balancing the desire for bigger industry names to visit Jordan with
celebrating stories from first-time Arab filmmakers.
“We’ll probably have the same with more guests and we hope to
have, probably, a bigger participation, especially from Jordanian filmmakers.
Because this festival is essentially made for people in Jordan,” she added.
“It will probably attract more audience, more people interested in
cinema, more people who would like to work in the cinema field. And I trust
that the festival will be on the map in the region very soon.”
Among some of the guests was Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef.
Youssef joined the closing ceremony to present and speak on the importance of
expression through filmmaking. “I really like what the festival is doing,
basically giving a chance to people with first films, first movies. Which is
great, because I myself had nothing to do with media or television and somebody
had to give me the first chance. So it’s good to see that the film festival is
doing that for people with first experiences,” he told
Jordan News.
Youssef said he would be interested in engaging with Jordanian
film culture as the scene continues to grow. “In the past few years, Jordan has
been putting a lot of investment in films in becoming a hub for movie-making
and television productions. And even a lot of productions from the Gult, from
Egypt, they are being filmed here.”
The awards themselves featured a distinct trend noted director and
festival juror Samir. All three winners of the major festival accolade, The
Black Iris, were female directors. “Honestly, we had, in our jury, no doubt in
the first place,” he said, specifically referring to the jury’s selection of Honey
Cigar for the Best Arab Feature-Length Narrative category.
“We saw all these films, and they are first time films, except
one, which was of course excellently done. But we have decided to support a
young director, a brave director, from Algeria. Who lives in France, but who
lives the life of millions of people today, a migrant life. A life torn between
two different cultures,” the Iraqi-Swiss director told
Jordan News after the
ceremony.
Samir went on to admit that the jury absolutely gravitated towards
a central theme, however unintentional. Many of the films featured this year
included narratives concerning women’s struggle for empowerment, as well as
international and regional societal critique through various feminist
perspectives.
“You could say it’s a political sign, or a message to everyone
that we support, of course, the fight of the women for their rights and for
their destiny,” Samir said.
Beyond the statements that can be gleaned by the jury’s
selections, the Amman International Film Festival can once again claim success
just for existing another year. The festival’s seven-person team once again had
to face pandemic-related obstacles, albeit less restrictive, in the interest of
putting together a strong slate of local, regional, and international films.
Bassem Youssef added, in addition to his crediting the festival’s
growth, that such events are in the interest of any future promotion of
self-expression in Jordan.
“A film festival is a place where people can express themselves
with their art. Art, in itself, is one of the most beautiful outlets for
self-expression and it’s done in a beautiful, artistic, and attractive way,” he
said.
“And it doesn’t have to be on the nose, it doesn’t have to be in a
preachy way, or it doesn’t have to be in an aggressive way. Sometimes the most
powerful statements can be done with the most artistic and beautiful
expression.”
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