When celebrity spotters lined the Abu Dhabi Theatre's red carpet last weekend to gawk at Evan Rachel Wood, Maria de Medeiros and the French electronica band Air, another set of world film premieres were getting a much more low-profile screening at Marina Mall's Vox Cinemas just across the road.
They were the contenders for the Emirates Film Competition (EFC) and unlike their more established counterparts at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, these fledgling filmmakers were not likely to be bothered by half-empty theatres. For them, simply seeing their imagination transferred to the big screen was a dream come true. They shared a conviction that the masses will surely catch on to their talent down the road.
"Am I happy about the premiere? Well, yes," said the Dubai filmmaker Fatma Abdulla, whose surrealist film Soul was the third of seven shorts shown last Friday during one of several EFC screenings.
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"But the happiness is not about how 'wow, I finished this film'. It's about how I finally managed to make the first step and now I can move on to the next film."
Originally launched in 2001 under the name Tathahura (Special Event), the Emirates Film Competition was one of the first in the region.
It was originally designed to serve as a standalone showcase for local Emirati talent, said the event's director, Ali Al Jabri.
"Well, for one thing, we were here before the Abu Dhabi and Dubai film festivals, so the format was quite new," he explains.
"Basically, we contacted all the local filmmakers and creative colleges to see if they wanted to put any of their work in. The response was huge."
Within a few months, more than 300 films were submitted. A selection was screened over a week at the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation.
Buoyed by the success, Tathahura was relabelled the Emirates Film Competition and was opened to filmmakers throughout the GCC, with prize money ranging from Dh10,000 to Dh30,000 awarded for the best films. The event was incorporated into the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in 2008, with expanded competition streams.
This year, 45 films were chosen out of 177 submissions from across the region, with students and independent filmmakers competing in separate categories from short narratives to documentaries. The entries are up for their own set of Black Pearl awards, which include a top prize, jury awards, best Emirati film and best cinematography. The winners have been chosen by a jury composed of local and international filmmaking talent, and will be announced at a special ceremony tomorrow night at the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr ahead of the main Black Pearl gala on Friday.
Al Jabri says he is continually surprised by the range of local topics each competition covers, suggesting they provide a sort of cultural portrait that expatriates in the UAE often do not get to see.
"Short films are like letters on different cultures," he says. "It will give a chance for the international public to see some of the great talents that we already have and the ones that are coming up."
Despite making 11 short films already, the New York Film Academy student Mansour Al Dhaheri has entered the competition for the first time. His evocative 42-minute documentary A Falcon Will Not Breed a Dove - about the late Sheikh Zayed told through the eyes of a family friend - was met with applause after its debut screening last Saturday.
Al Dhaheri views his film as an effort to preserve Sheikh Zayed's legacy after the late ruler gave him his first-ever job as a 15-year-old student.
"He stopped in Al Ain to have some coffee and he saw our school bus and called the students over," he recalls. "He then asked me what's my name and I told him. He then told one of his employees to hire me to train in my summer break."
For seven years Al Dhaheri spent his holidays working for Sheikh Zayed's charity arm. After the leader died in 2004, Al Dhaheri focused on his education and his fledgling filmmaking hobby.
He believes making films for creative reasons is not enough, and local and regional filmmakers have a duty to use the universal medium to break down culture barriers.
"There has to be a message to everything that we do," he says.
"As a filmmaker we should be aware of our region, the challenges it has and how we present it. Our films should be eye-openers."
The five-minute student short film Dinner #7665, from the Egyptian filmmaker Salma Serry, concerns matters of the heart. The American University of Sharjah graduate uses a silent dinner between a father and daughter to shed light on the ongoing generation gap.
"They are both cold and distant and it is really a metaphor for some of the father and daughter relationships in the region," she says. "And she is basically asking herself if she can approach him about a particular thing that she wants."
In addition to serving as a platform to introduce herself to the film world, Serry says the annual competition provides much-needed motivation to make even more films.
It is this determination that saw former Emirates Film Competition entrants go on to make their own feature-length films, says Al Jabri.
He proudly lists the Emirati filmmaker Nawaf Al Janahi, who will premiere his debut feature film Sea Shadow tonight at Abu Dhabi Theatre, as one of the competition's early entrants.
Another former entrant, Saeed Al Murry, had his first feature film Sun Dress screened at last year's festival.
"Nawaf entered our competition 10 years ago and now he is an important filmmaker," Al Jabri says. "It shows that the competition is not just about screening films, it's about producing directors, script writers and editors."
Al Dhaheri is hopeful for the future of the local industry, and believes more such features are on the way from the country's budding filmmaking talent.
"For us to make it through to the festival, that itself is an award for us," he says. "I am confident that this is only just the beginning, there are many great stories coming from the UAE and this region. Stay tuned."
