Emirati Layla Kaylif wins IWC Filmmaker Award



DUBAI // An Emirati was named the winner of the IWC Filmmaker Award at a glittering gala dinner on Thursday night, hosted by IWC and the Dubai International Film Festival.

Layla Kaylif won the coveted award, along with US$100,000 (Dh367,000) in prize money to bring her script The Letter Writer to life on screen.

Stars including Turkish actress Tuba Buyukustun, Lebanese actress Razane Jammal, American actor Richard Dreyfuss, and British-Emirati filmmaker Ali Mostafa gathered to see Kaylif being presented with the award by the British Slumdog Millionaire actor Dev Patel.

Kaylif, 44, who lives between London and Dubai, said she was “shocked and honoured” to receive the award. She was accompanied to the event by the man who she says was the inspiration behind her script – her father, Khalifa Dasmal.

“I grew up in Dubai, and my father used to tell me tales about his childhood during the 1960s in Dubai – he was the inspiration for this story,” she said. “It’s about a young boy who is a professional letter-writer for people who are illiterate.”

Kaylif said that when writing the script, she had romanticised the stories her father had related to her.

“In my script, the boy falls in love with the object of one of his customer’s affections.”

Mr Dasmal joked about his childhood with his daughter, saying: “I thought I had forgotten that awful part of my life, and now she has rewritten it.”

It will be the first foray into films for Kaylif, who is a singer-songwriter by profession.

Kaylif was one of three entrants shortlisted for the award this year, out of 17 entrants.

Other finalists were Qatari director Khalifa Al Muraikhi for his project Sahaab and Saudi director Shahad Ameen for her feature Scales.

Jury member and Diff chairman Abdulhamid Juma was impressed that two out of three of the shortlisted scripts were written by women, and pointed out that 22 of 70 Arab directors with films screening at this year’s festival were women.

“The women are coming up with different thoughts and stories than male filmmakers, and you can see that in the scripts. Filmmaking is an emotional business – for creative people, the films are like their babies.

“Females have different insights into life and into themselves. It’s very interesting. We can learn from their experiences.”

This year's jury was presided over by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad, whose film The Idol will be shown at the festival. He was accompanied to the awards dinner by the film's producer, Amira Diab, who is also his wife.

Abu-Assad's 2013 film Omar was nominated for an Oscar and he won a Golden Globe for his 2006 film Paradise Now, but Abu-Assad said it was not easy to judge someone else's film script.

“I did this because I love this festival, so whatever it is they ask me to do, I answer them. But it’s very difficult to judge such a competition.

“Do you judge a script on its idea, its flow, its narrative, its drama, or its originality? How do you decide?”

Now in its fourth year of running, the IWC award – presented by IWC Schaffhausen, a watch company – was won last year by Abdullah Boushahri for his script The Water.

The Kuwaiti filmmaker, who was present at this year’s ceremony, said he was “very excited” that his film was now in pre-production and on schedule to start filming in April.

Of a total of nine films from the Gulf region that the IWC have so far awarded, six of them have been produced or are under production.

Also on Thursday, it was announced that three of the films being screened at Diff have been nominated for best motion picture in the Golden Globe nominations: Room, Spotlight and The Big Short. Room opened the festival on Wednesday and played on Thursday night.

Spotlight will be screened on Monday at 10pm and The Big Short on Wednesday at 8pm.

newsdesk@thenational.ae

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

MATCH INFO

Manchester City 4 (Gundogan 8' (P), Bernardo Silva 19', Jesus 72', 75')

Fulham 0

Red cards: Tim Ream (Fulham)

Man of the Match: Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City)

The 12 Syrian entities delisted by UK 

Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Defence
General Intelligence Directorate
Air Force Intelligence Agency
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Syrian National Security Bureau
Military Intelligence Directorate
Army Supply Bureau
General Organisation of Radio and TV
Al Watan newspaper
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Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

In numbers

1,000 tonnes of waste collected daily:

  • 800 tonnes converted into alternative fuel
  • 150 tonnes to landfill
  • 50 tonnes sold as scrap metal

800 tonnes of RDF replaces 500 tonnes of coal

Two conveyor lines treat more than 350,000 tonnes of waste per year

25 staff on site

 

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PROFILE OF INVYGO

Started: 2018

Founders: Eslam Hussein and Pulkit Ganjoo

Based: Dubai

Sector: Transport

Size: 9 employees

Investment: $1,275,000

Investors: Class 5 Global, Equitrust, Gulf Islamic Investments, Kairos K50 and William Zeqiri