ZUMEFF 2017
Tuesday, May 2
Nada Alhameeri
The Zayed University Middle East Film Festival (ZUMEFF) is a film festival made by students for the students, and this year of 2017 is the 8th year to execute this great middle-eastern event. The festival gathers the film produced by students from all over the middle-east, as in last year, 65 films produced from 40 universities of 16 countries. This year’s festival took place between 30th of April to May 1st. The festival was born in 2010, as a graduation project executed by the students Al Yazyah Al Falasi and Reem Majed, with the help of the Faculty Director Alia Yunis. The main aim of the festival is to show care the young film producers in the Middle East, and encourage them to thrive and blossom into this field. I visited this festival this year, and watched seven great film starting from 1:30 to 12:00. This report will describe three films that I enjoyed watching.
Humanitarian
One of the films describes the journey of the producer of the video in the Amana Health Care Disability Center, which was for humanitarian and moral works. During his visit, he met Anna, a little girl who is disable and not able to talk, but can sense the presence of people. He spent some time with her, and played with her using an electronic tablet, which she seemed to enjoy greatly. His grandfather is also a patient in the same center, as he appears to visit him there, to hold to his hand and speak with him. He is hopeful that the condition of his grandfather will get better with time with the proper medical care provided to him in the center. He also appears in a shot in the film feeding his grandfather his dinner, which according to him, “was a unique experience”. I think that the short film is a way of advocating good-doing, especially to patients who are admitted in hospitals, who need the companionship and visits of people. Providing social contact is essential to enhance the psychological and even medical conditions of admitted patients, and lacking them could have counter effects.
UAE Falconry
The other film is about falconry in the United Arab Emirates, done by Horeeya Al Muflahi. The film shows an Emirati guy named Amer Al Muflahi, who talking about his passion of the Emirati traditional practice of falconry, that he started practicing about 5 years ago. Falconry requires hunting an animal like a rabbit or a bird using a trained falcon. He said that he didn’t automatically have that drive to practice falconry, but it came about when he saw the passion of his friends to practice it. In the middle of the winter season, the guys compete on falconry with a price ranging between 5,000–10,000 Dirhams. The price is caller Al Sharah, provided by Bu Khalifa Al Mutawa, each Saturday the Sharah (price) differs in its value. They would use a dove, and take off its an amount of its feathers to be a target for falcons. According to Amer, “The less feathers it has the more lighter it is, and the more feathers it has, the stronger and faster it is”. Next comes Faisal al Muflahi, Amer’s cousin, who said that he used to be a horse-rider, but later decided to be more into falconry. He also stated that the moderate weather in UAE’s winter is suitable to practice falconry in the desert. In my opinion, the film is wonderfully showing a part of our Emirati culture to the world, which increases knowledge about us as a unique country and a culture.
Nadeem
The third film was filmed in Shan Radio Center L.L.C, that is owned by a very simple and cheerful Pakistani man living in Abu Dhabi, and running his radio place. He starts with telling jokes about his center, saying that he loves his cassette player, but it is not working, what is really working is his radio. Thus, he has this radio center! He starts talking about Abu Dhabi, thanking God for living in this city, as he stated that he found his lost happiness here. As he said, “I like this Abu Dhabi, I am not happy in Pakistan”. Next he moves to talking about his beloved wife, that was sad to be left alone in Pakistan, but he reminded her that their reunion is after six months. Therefore, there is no reason for her grief. He described how he spent his time with her, enjoying walking together in the corniche after working hours, and helping her in home chores. Later on in the film, it turns out that he was unfortunately talking about his late wife, who lost her life very young due to a fight with some Bengalis who stabbed her to death. From this video, twenty-two years later after losing her, it seemed that he could not forget her memory and get over this shocking event. In my opinion, this video shows how some people who might appear “simple and joyful”, might carry within them very sad stories. Thus, it is important to remember this fact in our daily dealings with people, as you might never know what they went through.
In conclusion, visiting the film festival and watching the films was such a great experience to me, as I discovered that as short as those films, they can loaded with very deep meanings. Additionally, from these films I realized that youth in the Middle East have great potentials to be discovered and nurtured, since they were able to produce very high quality films, brief, creative and with a great message. Each film had something to deliver to the wide audience, which everyone can relate to and understand, which means it is made in a universal humanitarian language. You don’t have to be Middle Eastern to understand the sense of what you are watching. Taking care of those gifted youths and giving them the opportunity to display their work, as well as providing them with the proper environment to thrive, can be very beneficial to the Middle Eastern world. The masterpieces of the Middle Eastern Youth in media and film making can deliver positive ideas about the orient, and fight the reputation of radicalism.
