Film makes room for hope in Palestine

Rashid Bakri, the Palestinian director, wants people to appreciate his homeland for what it is.

'Laila's Birthday' starring Mohamed Bakri, right, who attended last night's screening, is one of many films about Palestine in this year's festival.

ABU DHABI // Rashid Bakri, the Palestinian director, wants people at this year's Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF) to appreciate his homeland for what it is - not the battle-torn stereotype of news bulletins. "I don't want people to just see us as being about war and intifada," he said. "We have our normal lives too. We have a beautiful country, language and culture but we also have our problems beyond what people see in the news."

His film, Laila's Birthday, was the festival's opening red carpet event last night and its stars, Mohamed Bakri and Areen Omari, were in Abu Dhabi for its Middle East premiere. It was followed by the British film Easy Virtue starring Colin Firth. Laila's Birthday is the story of Abu Laila, a judge who is forced to drive a taxi to make a living. It chronicles his day as he is on his way home to his only daughter's seventh birthday, encountering a series of disasters along the way.

The frustrated judge faces conflicts between Palestinians, problems at checkpoints, crime, as well as the challenges of poverty. His difficulties border on the absurd, but it is this absurdity which Bakri says has become normality for many Palestinians. "What happens in Abu Laila's day can happen all over again tomorrow." Bakri, whose film premiered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and will soon be shown at the Cultural Centre in Ramallah, in the West Bank, retains a sense of optimism despite 60 years of Israeli occupation.

"I didn't want the ending to be hopeless," he says. "The whole movie demonstrates the frustration we feel every day but it was important to me to offer some hope. I wanted to say that out of all the negative things we can create something positive for our future, for the future of our children. In spite of all this, life goes on because it must." The film is one of many in this week's film festival to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, known as the nakba, or "the catastrophe".

Other events include a conference at the Emirates Palace hotel on Sunday, entitled 60 Years Since The Division Of Palestine, and a screening of the documentary film Letters From Palestine on Saturday at Marina Mall. MBC2, the satellite broadcaster, also announced the launch of its second Movies in Motion competition yesterday. This year's competition will reach beyond the Emirates, incorporating Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Entrants will vie for the chance to make a two-minute film with a team of experts at a leading film academy.

Their storyboards will be sent to judges who will team them up with professional film-makers to produce the short movies. The winning film will be seen by more than 40 million viewers across the region. The Movies in Motion roadshow begins next month. Ordinary people can enter their ideas; 40 schools and universities have already said they will take part. Tomorrow will see the screening of Henna, the sole Emirati film to be nominated for MEIFF's international feature films category. Written and directed by Saleh Karama, it is the story of a woman whose mother's epilepsy led to divorce.

The first documentary of MEIFF's environmental programme, White Falcon, White Wolf, by Fergus Beeley, will also be shown tomorrow. It tells the story of two arctic predators - the white gyr falcon and the arctic wolf - which live on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. [e-mail]