The Bahrain Film Festival was inaugurated last night, with screenings and workshops commencing today and lasting until Monday.
Organised by the Bahrain Cinema Club, the festival’s fifth edition features 74 movies from all over the world, including 14 Bahraini short films.
This year’s iteration is being held under the theme ‘Short Films, Great Stories’, and opened with a special screening of Hope by filmmaker Ahmed Zayani.
It was launched with a stage play that summarised the history of film in Bahrain, in the presence of Information Minister Dr Ramzan Al Noaimi and French Ambassador Eric Giraud-Telme.
Pioneering Bahraini director Bassam Al Thawadi gave an inspiring speech about how he started out in the film scene in Bahrain in the 70s, beginning as a janitor and ending up writing and directing many memorable local classics.
Beside Hope, Bahraini films featured in the festival are Karim, Stitches (Al Gharza), After the Storm (Ba’d Al Asifa), Salem Not Salem, Mixtape and Hope From the Ashes.
Ultra-short films, created as part of the 48th Film Challenge held by the French Embassy, will be shown twice on November 2, and the winner will be declared on the same day.
The seven competing films are Qassab – The Sins of the Father, Silent Keys, Me, But Better, Insect Resources, Hey, The Gift of Forgetting and Knock.
“Hope is a passion project – it came from an idea I had in my head for a few years,” Mr Zayani told the GDN.
“I’m happy that this was picked as the opening film for the festival. To be among these wonderful individuals is such an honour for me.
“In Bahrain, historically, we are drama-centric when it comes to the films we make, so to have something that is very ‘genre’ is different from the films we’ve been exposed to here.
“I hope the film finds its footing here, and I hope that this is the first step in creating more of a genre-centric environment in Bahrain and in the region.”
According to Mr Zayani, the film has so far been displayed in 16 festivals, including ones in the UK, US and Mexico, winning the Audience Choice Award in the HorrorHaus Film Festival in Los Angeles.
He added that the post-production process took a long time, since the team was scattered across the world, with music composed in Bahrain, sound design in India and colour-correction in the US.
Awards for the categories Bahraini short films, short narrative films, short documentary films, short animation films and short student films will be announced during the closing ceremony on November 4.
Screenings are held in ‘bundles’, which include a collection of films featured in the festival to be shown together in the same session.
Viewers can register for bundles for free on the festival’s website www.bahrainfilmfestival.org/bundles/
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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