After parts of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens were filmed in the Abu Dhabi desert last year, and with Star Trek set to film in Dubai this month, Sharjah Art Foundation and Cinema Akil have been inspired to organise special screenings of two short films for sci-fi fans.
The first is THX 1138, a 15-minute film made by George Lucas in 1967, 10 years before Star Wars. The second is Egyptian director Yehia El Alami's Star Trek-inspired 1979 film Khatee'at Malak (Sin of an Angel). Both will be screened at Sharjah's Mirage cinema on Saturday.
Lucas's THX 1138 is set in an underground city, an impersonal, emotionless, computerised society in which the residents are drugged into compliance and their movements are constantly monitored. The film follows the main character, known only as THX 1138 4EB, as he attempts to escape from the dystopian hell.
Lucas expanded the film into his feature-film debut of the same name, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, which was released in 1971.
Khatee'at Malak draws heavily from Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, depicting "heaven" as the inside of a space ship while exploring the themes of fallen angels and redemption. In addition to the sci-fi filmmaking activity, Butheina Kazim, the co-founder of Cinema Akil, says the programme was further inspired by the recently proposed Museum of the Future, as well as artist Mehreen Murtaza's UFO Hunters, an installation that was at Alserkal Avenue during Art Week in March. "Even more pertinently, we zeroed in on Sharjah and, specifically, the Flying Saucer building, which was built in the 70s as a bakery [and is now a permanent venue for the Sharjah Art Foundation's project]," says Kazim.
The building was a landmark for Kazim as a child when she visited Sharjah and so the year of its construction was used as a starting point for the film programme – making the 1970s the parameter for the first screenings.
“We were interested in juxtaposing a regional film with a non-regional one to contrast the ways sci-fi was being treated as a genre and what it was used to express,” she says. “Finding and choosing an Arab sci-fi film was a challenge to begin with, let alone one from the 1970s.”
SAF's film and music programme co-ordinator Sataan Al Hassan adds: "With the UAE's recent involvement in space exploration, the latest addition to the Star Wars film saga being shot in the Abu Dhabi desert, and Star Trek's second sequel being filmed in Dubai, we thought it would be interesting to collaborate on a sci-fi film programme."
The screenings will continue later in the month with Nation Estate (2012), directed by Palestinian Larissa Sansour, and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
• THX 1138 and Khatee’at Malak (Sin of an Angel), will be screened from 8.30pm on Saturday at Mirage City Cinema in Sharjah. Visit www.sharjahart.org or www.cinemaakil.com
aseaman@thenational.ae