Butheina Kazim's Cinema Akil brings to Dubai a festival celebrating indie films that's perfect for the long summer ahead
Published: Tue 28 Jun 2016, 4:28 PM
Last updated: Mon 18 Jul 2016, 7:15 PM
London has the 'Open Air Theatre' in Regent's Park, New York has 'Outdoor Movie Nights' at Washington Square Park and, in Vienna, there is the 'Live Opera in the Square'. Now, Dubai has 'Cinema Akil X Alserkal Avenue'. Of course, it is too hot in this city to host such events outdoors, but there are plenty of cool places that work well for summer cultural pop-ups - and that is something Cinema Akil's Butheina Kazim knows well.
Having worked in television, radio and film acquisitions, Butheina Kazim (who has even produced her own short film, Letters to Palestine) set up Cinema Akil in 2014. "I believed that a city as diverse as Dubai, with all its communities and stories, deserved to have a consistent home and platform for all the independent and art house cinema that is missing from the offerings at multiplexes," she says. "Cinema builds empathy and closeness - it can also change one's actions and thoughts about ideas, places, causes and other people. Dubai was missing a dedicated space for all that cinema has to offer."
For Kazim, it's about a lot more than just watching films. It's about building a community - that's why Cinema Akil encourages discussions on the films too. "Above and beyond the programming, there is another key community element to cinema that I am preoccupied with - and that is a platform for people to come together, share moments, cloaked in sublime darkness, and linger afterwards, either exchanging thoughts or simply basking in the effects of the experience," she explains.
Prior to setting up her own outfit, the cinephile was formerly at Seen TV. Says Kazim, "It was to be the Arab world's first free-to-air Pan-Arab channel dedicated to indie film. Unfortunately, it never launched due to the financial crisis, so I went on to independently organise film programmes, such as the Abu Dhabi Film Festival at the Pavilion (which brought the best of the festival out here to Dubai audiences), among others." And that's where the idea for Cinema Akil came from.
Since its inception, Cinema Akil has held over 25 pop-ups all over the UAE. It was a part of Market Outside the Box and Fashion Forward Dubai (FFWD) this year. At FFWD, it screened the film documentary Advanced Style, based on the work of fashion blogger Ari Seth Cohen, whose blog is dedicated to the eclectic women of New York who do not let age define what they wear.
Currently, Kazim is planning to tackle the northern emirates of Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah, as well as be a part of Dubai Photography Week and the Dubai Food Festival.
Thanks to her passion and experience in the industry, she knows which films will work for her audience and curates them accordingly. "I'm not exactly sure when I fell in love with films. But it definitely came from the medium's ability to transport me to different realities and allow me to experience different lives. For someone afflicted by wanderlust, that's a magical notion," she notes. She attends films festivals all over the world and is constantly in touch with independent film distributors, thus staying up-to-date with her medium.
In early June, Cinema Akil kicked off their summer weekly film programme called 'A Hard Day's Night' at A4 Space in Alserkal Avenue, the platform's fourth collaboration with the arts hub in Al Quoz. Playing through till September, Factory Girl by Mohammad Khan, Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by Mel Stuart are just some of the films that are part of the promising summer line-up.
"The films in 'A Hard Day's Night' will interrogate notions of the workforce, manufacturing processes and industry," says Kazim. "Over the course of three months, it will showcase films from around the cinematic globe, stretching across myriad genres, lenses and movements: from a timeless classic set in a hyper-mechanised future in Fritz Lang's Metropolis to a personal story of perilous grunt work in Aki Kaurusmäki's The Match Factory Girl - the final instalment in the Finnish director's Proletariat Trilogy."
Alserkal Avenue is almost like home for Kazim, as it is where Cinema Akil first launched - at The Third Line Gallery. Their pop-ups played to a packed house from the very first screening. But just because you hear the word "art house", do not think Cinema Akil is only about heavy subject matters - it is about plain good cinema too. Just watch Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, Undocument by Dubai filmmaker Khalid Jabaly or Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali.
Though the motto for Cinema Akil is "Cinema is Everywhere", the platform's aim is to have a permanent home and run a theatre dedicated to the films that Kazim believes in. "The pop-up public programmes are either commissioned or sponsored, which enable us to attract a large number of people to our screenings. The permanent space will be ticketed in order to guarantee the sustainability of the programming."
With Cinema Akil now marking a permanent spot on the Dubai cultural events calendar, it shouldn't take long for Kazim to realise her dream. But that's not where it ends for her, as she also hopes to produce more films in the future. It seems the Cinema Akil hashtag #fortheloveoffilm is the best way to describe Kazim's passion for cinema.
sujata@khaleejtimes.com
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