Day Three of the Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF) on Sunday 12th October sheds some visionary light on the subject of love, with three documentaries in the MEIFF ‘International Competition for Documentaries’ and two feature films also in competition during the festival.
First up is documentary Every Little Step, with directors James D Stern & Adam Del Deo recording the desperation of performers to be in the revival of the beloved Broadway 1970’s musical ‘A Chorus Line’. Detailing the intense audition process for the actors and dancers hungry for a role in the revival, the film provides us with some dramatic (and emotional) twists and turns.
Stern also produced MEIFF’s Opening Night film The Brothers Bloom, and will be available for a panel discussion following the screening of Every Little Step in conjunction with Adam Del Deo on Sunday 12th October.
Director Mohammad Shirvani asked himself the age old question “What would I do as a film director if I lost my sight?” and came up with his documentary Seven Blind Female Filmmakers as a result.
Shirvani supervised a three-month intensive screenwriting and filmmaking course with blind volunteers, teaching them to portray their surroundings with small digital cameras without the aid of sight. Seven of their personal films (from directors Sara Pato, Shokoofe Davarnejad, Narges Heghighat, Banafeshe Ahmadi, Mahdis Elahi, Naghemh Afiat, Neda Heghighat) have been compiled into the documentary, with Shirvani citing that from them he learnt a completely new way of looking at the world through the lense.
Mohammed Shirvani will introduce Seven Blind Female Filmmakers at its MEIFF screening on Sunday 12th, which will be followed by a panel discussion featuring six of the blind female directors.
Challenging perceptions and finding a new way to see things was also on the agenda of Slovakian documentary director Juraj Lehotský’s, in his film Blind Loves.
Portraying love between blind people, this documentary reveals an entirely new dimension to the idea of love and its various forms, screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and also winning the FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics) award at Motovun, Croatia.
Lehotský remarks: “The real ‘blindness’ does not depend on someone’s being sighted or non-sighted, but rather on one’s willingness to see.”. He will be available to discuss the film following Sunday 12th’s screening.
To celebrate Damascus being named the ‘2008 Cultural Capital of the Arab World’, MEIFF will screen distinguished Syrian director Rimon Boutrous’ seminal film Hasiba. The Syrian Minister for Culture will introduce the film to audiences prior to the screening.
Depicting historical Syrian events between 1927 and 1950, Hasiba’s plot centres on several female characters from Damascus aspiring to a better future with determination and confidence. This is Boutrous’ third film, and is also his first screen adaptation from a literary source, being based on the writings by Khairi Al-Zahabi - a true giant among Arab novelists.
As a captivating end to Day Three of MEIFF 2008, the compelling feature film Wild Blood by Italian screenwriter and director Marco Tullio Giordana will screen. Based on the true story of movie star couple - Luisa Ferida and Osvaldo Valenti - the film stars Monica Belluci, the Italian beauty, former model and actress.
Wild Blood vividly paints a picture of one of Italy’s most famous – and infamous - couples and the wild, irrepressible and passionate life they led together in the 1940s which ended in their murder.
For more information and to purchase tickets visit www.meiff.com
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