Avatar gets an early start in Dubai



The long-awaited James Cameron science fiction epic will screen on December 15 at the Dubai International Film Festival, representing a coup for organisers; the movie will open two days later in most of the rest of the world, and three days later across the US. Matt Kwong reports One of the decade's most ambitious and most anticipated films, James Cameron's science-fiction epic Avatar, will close the Dubai International Film Festival, organisers said yesterday.

The film, which is reported to have cost US$237 million (Dh87m) and has been 15 years in the making, will screen on December 15, two days before its general release in the UAE. It stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang and Michelle Rodriguez. Although its world premiere will be on December 10 in London, the news of the early showing in Dubai was a thrill for local film buffs such as Faizan Rashid, the editor of the Dubai-based entertainment website wearethemovies.com.

"There is no such thing as a bad James Cameron film," said Mr Rashid, a 30-year-old Pakistani. Cameron directed the first two Terminator films and also directed the 1997 romantic drama Titanic, one of the most profitable motion pictures of all-time, with a record worldwide gross of more than US$1.8bn. "He's a phenomenally gifted filmmaker. He's not just cutting-edge and technologically polished, but the marketing machine over the past few weeks have been saying Avatar is going to change the way we see films, so I'm really pumped."

Linda Picard, the head of marketing for Empire International, which distributes films from Sony and Twentieth Century Fox to the Gulf region, expected the film about a human who fights to save an alien world under threat to be one of the biggest-grossing releases not only for the UAE, but for other Gulf markets as well. "Absolutely it is a game-changer," she said. "It's a first-of-its-kind experience, technologically groundbreaking. It's going to take moviemaking to the next level."

Mr Rashid said that the film was likely to be the biggest movie of 2009, at least in scope. Unlike the Twilight sequel New Moon, he said Avatar could snare a much larger demographic because it will combine action, romance and special effects that have been billed as unrivalled. "People are going to remember there were films before Avatar and films after Avatar. It's really going to be like a watershed on how films are made from this point onwards," he said.

"For this movie," said Mr Rashid, "[Cameron] had to wait a long time more than a decade for moviemaking technology to catch up to a point where it could produce the ideas already in his mind." Indeed, Cameron worked with Sony to come up with a new, smaller and much lighter 3D camera. Fans who have seen an extended, 25-minute preview have described the picture as having extraordinarily deep detail.

With films such as 1994's True Lies and the 1986 sequel Aliens, Cameron has a record of satisfying fans while winning over critics. Mr Rashid believes Avatar could threaten some box-office records. "This is the kind of movie where people will get excited and want to wait to watch on the big screen, and not just in regular cinemas, but on Imax," he said. "An Imax film costs about Dh50, so that's, what, 60 per cent more than a regular ticket?

"On our online forum, we have people from Saudi Arabia saying when they come down in January to the UAE, they're going straight to Imax for Avatar." To Vera Prudent, the supervisor of the ticketing office at Ibn Battuta Mall's Imax 300-plus-seat cinema, it was clear that fans were eager to see what Cameron has been labouring over for more than a decade. "Some people come from Saudi, sometimes from Al Ain, just to go in here to watch an Imax movie," she said. "We know already customers are eager to watch this movie."

Judging from the popularity of the 2007 3D motion-capture film Beowulf, in which the UAE's only Imax cinema was consistently packed, she added, Avatar should be a tremendous success. "Of course it will make a lot of money," she said. "I think there will be a full house for a number of days." Unfortunately for Mr Rashid, he will be missing the premiere at the Dubai film festival, as he will be in Switzerland on his honeymoon. "Just a couple of hours ago, I was looking for showtimes in Zurich," he said.

"The 17th of December seems to be the earliest worldwide release date, and then it comes out in the US on the 18th, so we're lucky enough here to get it at least a day in advance." He is already anticipating repeat viewings, along with Shariq Madani, another critic who writes for the website. "A James Cameron film you can expect to watch at least twice," Mr Madani, 30 and from India, said. "I'll probably go see it two or three times, but I might want to go by myself the first time so I can completely concentrate on the movie."

Avatar will also be available in 2D across the region, as well as in 2D digital and 3D in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, and in Imax in the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar. The Dubai International Film Festival runs from December 9 to 16. It will open with Nine, the latest effort by Rob Marshall, director of Chicago. Other films expected to gain attention at the festival are City of Life by Ali F Mustafa and Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year by the Indian director Ranbir Kapoor.

mkwong@thenational.ae

THE LIGHT

Director: Tom Tykwer

Starring: Tala Al Deen, Nicolette Krebitz, Lars Eidinger

Rating: 3/5

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

The biog

Name: Dhabia Khalifa AlQubaisi

Age: 23

How she spends spare time: Playing with cats at the clinic and feeding them

Inspiration: My father. He’s a hard working man who has been through a lot to provide us with everything we need

Favourite book: Attitude, emotions and the psychology of cats by Dr Nicholes Dodman

Favourit film: 101 Dalmatians - it remind me of my childhood and began my love of dogs 

Word of advice: By being patient, good things will come and by staying positive you’ll have the will to continue to love what you're doing

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APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)

Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits

Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

Storage: 128/256/512GB

Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4

Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps

Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID

Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight

In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter

Price: From Dh2,099

Director: Laxman Utekar

Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna

Rating: 1/5

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Temple numbers

Expected completion: 2022

Height: 24 meters

Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people

Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people

First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time

First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres  

Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres

Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor 

UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

In numbers

- Number of children under five will fall from 681 million in 2017 to 401m in 2100

- Over-80s will rise from 141m in 2017 to 866m in 2100

- Nigeria will become the world’s second most populous country with 791m by 2100, behind India

- China will fall dramatically from a peak of 2.4 billion in 2024 to 732 million by 2100

- an average of 2.1 children per woman is required to sustain population growth

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