Stars Of Arab Cinema To Attend The Abu Dhabi Film Festival

The Abu Dhabi Film Festival announced today that many of the biggest names in Arab cinema have confirmed their attendance at the upcoming Festival (October 14 to 23, 2010). The line-up of well-known screen personalities set to grace the Festival’s red carpet features some of the region’s most celebrated stars as well as up-and-coming talents of Arab film and television.

Major stars to attend the Festival include Yousra – whose glittering career in cinema has been matched by an equally brilliant presence on television in recent years – as well as eminent film and television actors Yehia el Fakharany from Egypt and Bassam Kousa from Syria. The Festival also looks forward to welcoming Lebleba, one of the Arab world’s best-loved popular entertainers, who started acting as a child and earned critical acclaim for her more serious roles in later years.

Mona Zaki and Ahmed Helmy lead a list of famous names from a new generation of Arab actors that also includes Ghada Adel, who starred in Mohamed Khan’s In the Heliopolis Flat (2007), and Fathy Abdel Wahab, best known for his role in Sahar Al Layali (2003) by Hani Khalifa and Fawzia: A Special Blend (2008) by Magdi Ahmed Ali.

The list goes on to include a host of other celebrated talents such as Rashid Assaf, Hicham Bahloul, Janine Dagher, Abdel Fahed, Tamer Hagras, Hassan Kachach, Somaya el Khasab, Younes Migri, Sana Mouziane, Mostafa Shaban, Shatha Taha Salim and Wael Ramadan.

Numerous celebrities from the Gulf countries are also expected at screenings and Gala Nights throughout the Festival. Among them are Suad Abdullah, Abdulhussain Abdulredha, Abdulmohsen el Nemr, Huda Hussain, Ghanem al Sulaiti, Khaled al Braiki, Mohammed al Mansour and Abdul Aziz Jassim.

Once again, the celebrity guest list also includes cast members of films being shown as part of the line-up. Julian Schnabel’s new film Miral, presented at a Gala Night as part of the Narrative Feature Competition, will be attended by Alexander Siddig, the Sudanese-born actor known for his work on several international productions, and Yasmine al Massri, who starred in Nadine Labaki’s Caramel (2007) and Najwa Najjar’s Pomegranates and Myrrh (2009). Schnabel’s latest feature is a sweeping multigenerational saga of four Arab women living under Israeli occupation, which created a lot of buzz in Venice and Toronto.

Julia Kassar and Carmen Lebbos, who made a name for themselves in theater and television before finding their place Lebanese cinema, will be in Abu Dhabi for the screening of Here Comes the Rain, directed by Bahij Hojeij. The much-anticipated film continues Hojeij’s exploration of the kidnappings that took place during the Lebanese civil war and tells the story of a man who returns to his family after 20 years of imprisonment, permanently scarred and detached from the reality of life.

Asser Yassin, Basma and Mohamed Lotfy star in the Egyptian film Messages from the Sea by Daoud Abdel Sayed in this year’s Narrative Feature Competition and are coming to Abu Dhabi to support the project. Messages from the Sea is a charming meditation on existence, memory, love and social disintegration that charts the story of a man who returns to his childhood home in Alexandria following the death of his mother.

The Narrative Feature Competition also includes Taming, by the Syrian director Nidal Aldibs, whose leading actors Salloum Haddad and Mohanad Kotesh will be at the film’s Festival screening. Taming interweaves dreams, desire and despair in a captivating existential drama that begins with a young man and a beautiful girl embarking on an escapist romance.

Qays Cheikh Najib, one of Syria’s most prominent actors and fellow Syrian star Kinda Allouch will attend the screening of Once Again by Joud Said, which will be shown as part of the New Horizons / Afaq Jadida Competition. Set against the backdrop of the Syrian military presence in Lebanon, Once Again tells the story of the son of an army officer, who loses his memory after a gun accident.

Another film with celebrity support is Living Skin by Egyptian director Fawzi Saleh, also in the New Horizons / Afaq Jadida Competition. The prominent Egyptian actor Mahmoud Hemada, who produced the film, will be coming to its Festival screening. Living Skin is a vibrant, ramshackle portrait of child labor in Egypt, showing a cross-section of children’s lives in the tanneries of a slum.

The Festival also looks forward to welcoming two Tunisian stars of films in the Short Film Competition. Anissa Daoud is a rising star of independent film, who does not shy away from radical roles, and is coming to the Festival to support the screening of Album, directed by Shiraz Fradi. Mouna Noureddine, one of Tunisia’s foremost theater and film actresses, will attend the screening of Wave by Mohamed Ben Attia.
 

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