ABU DHABI // A new film by Ridley Scott, the Hollywood director, will be one of many special screenings at next month's Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF). Body of Lies, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, will be shown in Abu Dhabi on the festival's closing night, Oct 19. The film, by the director of Blade Runner and Gladiator, focuses on an Iraq war journalist hired by the CIA to track down an al Qa'eda leader.
Other special presentations include Spike Lee's Miracle at St Anna, which follows the story of four black American soldiers trapped in an Italian village during the Second World War, and The Brothers Bloom by Rian Johnson, which will not hit international screens until the New Year. Woody Allen's feature film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Penélope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson, who become entangled in a love triangle with their co-star Javier Bardem, will also be screened during the 10 days.
Among the most controversial will be Errol Morris's film Standard Operating Procedure, which focuses on the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The film features interviews with the soldiers involved, but has been criticised for concentrating too much on the untrustworthiness of photography rather than exposing the US army's misdeeds. Mohamed al Mazrouri, director general of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach) and vice president of MEIFF, said it was a credit to Abu Dhabi's cultural project to have attracted filmmakers and films from all over the world.
"Abu Dhabi has marched with quick steps towards its ambition of becoming a regional centre for making and producing films and encouraging prominent international producers to bring their work to the region," he said. However it is not only international screenings that will attract attention. Seven of the films competing in the festival's Black Pearl Awards will be from Arab directors. These include Samir Habchi's Beirut Open City; Fawzia from Magdi Ahmed Ali; On a Day Like Today by Amr Salama; and Time of Comrades by Mohammed al Taribeq.
Saleh Karama represents the UAE with Henna. Beirut Open City follows Egyptian actor and photojournalist Khaled el Nabawi as he highlights brutal interrogation methods used by the intelligence services against political dissidents at the height of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in the 1990s. James Marsh's Man on Wire focuses on one man's view of the construction of the Twin Towers in New York, while Laila's Birthday, by director Rashid Mashawari, tells a story of life in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The films will be judged by a panel of five experts and the prize money will exceed US$1 million (Dh3.67 million). Jon Fitzgerald, the director of programming for MEIFF, said the standard of submissions for the competition was excellent. "It was a real challenge trying to achieve a true balance between East and West in our programming due to the sheer excellence of submissions from this part of the world and beyond."
Just under half of the 100 films being shown are in Arabic, while a third are in English. There will be full Arabic translations for all films and English translations for the Arabic screenings. The festival, in its second year, will be hosted at the Emirates Palace hotel, Abu Dhabi, from Oct 10-19. It will also feature a selection of environmental films and a retrospective highlighting the 60 years since the division of Palestine. For more information visit @email:www.meiff.com
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