Abu Dhabi art film season is back

Abu Dhabi - The greatest films of all time about to be screened at Manarat al Saadiyat auditorium include "Citizen Kane," Orson Welles' landmark gem of 1941 (March 8)

Buster Keaton's 1927 comic masterpiece, "The General," turned on the lights on the "7th Art" film season, which started on Sunday night and will keep rolling till mid May.The second season of the "7th Art", organised by the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA) and curated by veteran film expert Peter Scarlet - the director of the now defunct Abu Dhabi Film Festival, focuses on masterpieces.
 "This inspiring new series has been tailored to offer the public the chance for big screen viewing of some of the greatest examples of the art of cinema," commented Rita Aoun-Abdo, executive director of TCA.
The greatest films of all time about to be screened at Manarat al Saadiyat auditorium include "Citizen Kane," Orson Welles' landmark gem of 1941 (March 8); "Vertigo," Alfred Hitchcock's haunting 1958 thriller (April 3); "2001:A Space Odyssey," Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi meditation (May 1).The bi-weekly 7.30pm Sunday screenings will also see the culmination of the documentary series "The Story of Film", which began in the first season.For the first time this season, the film programme has been expanded to different outdoors locations across Abu Dhabi with screenings on Saturday evenings from 6.30pm.
The outdoor Saturday screenings will start on February 20 at Mushrif Park with the Jordanian movie "Theeb" (Wolf), the first Arab film ever to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
On March 12, Rob Reiner's beloved fairy tale, "The Princess Bride," will be shown in the garden adjoining the Al Fanr Restaurant at Manarat al Saadiyat.
It will be followed on April 2, on Abu Dhabi Corniche, with "PK," the top-grossing Indian film of all time, with Aamir Khan starring as an alien who arrives on Earth and tries to sort out the dogma and superstition in which he finds the planet's inhabitants mired.Just as the opening season film, another silent comedy - and a comic treasure - will conclude the outdoor presentations on April 23, when Charlie Chaplin's immortal "The Kid" screens on the Corniche.When first released in 1921, the great filmmaker's first feature-length film was advertised around the world as "a picture with a smile - and perhaps a tear" - and its appeal is undimmed nearly a century later.
"You may ask what is the big deal of seeing a 90 years old black and white movie," asked Peter Scarlet while talking about the silent films selection."85 per cent of silent movies ever made don't exist anymore," he said.When technology allowed for shooting films with sound and then in colours, most silent movies were destroyed, being considered outdated.A generation later, though, they were back, not just as cinematic masterpieces, but also as historical documents.All "7th Art" screenings are admission-free and subtitled in Arabic or English.
silvia@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE