Champ of the Camp to be shown at labour camps

Filmmaker Mahmoud Kaabour. Courtesy Veritas Films

It took a full year for the Dubai filmmaker Mahmoud Kaabour to recover from making his documentary Champ of the Camp – but he's not done yet.

Before the film’s spring DVD release – there is no date yet – Kaabour is planning to take it on a tour of labour camps so the people it portrays can have a chance to see it.

“The labourers will get a real kick from this,” said Kaabour after a recent screening of the film at New York University Abu Dhabi. “But it will not change things for them, we know that. There’s more to be done to show it in cinemas in the Gulf, because there are so many people who live here in the Gulf who are not exposed to the ­labourers.”

Kaabour would have liked for his film, which documents one season in a popular singing competition, to have more international screenings, but said he has encountered resistance to it abroad.

"Many film festivals are irked that the film is ambivalent – they wanted stronger criticism of the labour camp conditions," he said. "Champ of the Camp hasn't made it to a single film festival in India, which we found quite surprising, as we thought the movie would be an interesting point of discussion there."

Meanwhile, Kaabour says his next project is not the dramatic departure it seems to be.

"Our company is going to take a deeper dive into the world of music," he said. "I was extremely fortunate to befriend a darling opera singer. We have a mutual admiration. He has been teaching me about the hardships and suffering of being an opera singer – he's just signed on to do a film with me. In a way, it's similar to Champ of the Camp, because both films are about hardships and talent in music."