Sharjah Art Foundation has revealed the programme for the fifth Sharjah Film Platform.
The annual festival will run from October 21 to 30, taking place across three venues: Mirage City Cinema, Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts and Gallery 4 of Al Mureijah Art Spaces.
The programme consists of entries received through an annual open call and by invitation, accommodating feature-length and short films in three categories: narrative, documentary and experimental. It will feature international film festival favourites alongside critically acclaimed regional works.
The event also includes juried awards and panel discussions with filmmakers and industry experts. The SFP Industry Hub will also return as part of the festival, offering professional development and support to emerging filmmakers.
Payal Kapadia’s documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021), winner of the Golden Eye at the Cannes Film Festival, will open the festival. Merging reality with fiction, the film weaves together archival footage with student protest videos to tell the story of L, a student at the Film and Television Institute of India, writing to her estranged lover while he is away.
The event will conclude with Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021), which won the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and stars Tilda Swinton.
The film tells the story of a Scottish woman, who, after hearing a loud bang at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while in the jungles of Colombia.
An award ceremony on the last day of the festival will also celebrate the best narrative, documentary and experimental films.
The festival will honour the late film director Moufida Tlatli with the screening of three of her films: The Silences of the Palace (1994), The Season of Men (2000) and Nadia et Sarra (2004). The Tunisian filmmaker, who died in February last year, was the recipient of several prestigious film awards including the Cannes Film Festival's Camera d'Or and Toronto International Film Festival's International Critics' Award.
Through a collaborative initiative with the US Mission to the UAE, the event will also present Cherien Dabis’s Amreeka (2009) as one of the films in the programme.
This year’s festival will screen more than 25 films in the narrative, documentary and experimental genres, which were shortlisted through an international open call. The programme will also include the world premiere of Mariam Al Serkal and Maaria Sayed’s Unveiling Selma, which received the Short Film Production Grant last year.
For the first time, the festival will also include a special musical performance and a networking mixer to celebrate the festival and the filmmaking community.
All-female instrumental group Amal Waqar Trio will be performing at the opening ceremony on October 21 at Al Mureijah courtyard. The networking mixer with live DJ sets will take place on October 29 at Courtyard C, Al Mureijah Art Spaces.
A series of in-person talks, panel discussions and conversations, titled Alt Lens: Hi(stories) and Voices from the Borderline, will take place throughout the festival. Panellists will include filmmakers Darine Hotait, Herve Cohen and Scandar Copti as well as video artist Ulysses Jenkins. The series will be held in partnership with the US Mission to the UAE and the Arts and Humanities division at NYU Abu Dhabi, as part of American Film Week.
Shortlisted by an external jury of filmmakers, critics and producers, select films will receive awards in the Best Narrative, Best Documentary and Best Experimental categories, to be announced on the last day of the festival.
Tickets are available for purchase online and are set at Dh30 per screening. A festival pass is also available for Dh120 with special pricing for students. More information is available at sharjahart.org
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