One of the United Arab Emirates’ key film events, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, celebrates its 8th year starting tonight, Thursday, October 23, and running through Saturday, November 1. With programming that balances the regional debuts of films that have already garnered acclaim at key international events like Cannes and Sundance with new work from the Arab world, the festival offers scores of shorts and nearly 90 features, of which just over two dozen are nonfiction, many of which are noted below.
Among the Documentary Feature Competition entries with UAE production support presented are: Samir’s IRAQI ODYSSEY, a personal, 3D chronicle of five decades of family dislocation; Merieme Addou and Rosa Rogers’ PIRATES OF SALÉ (pictured), about a circus set in a Moroccan slum; Yasmin Fedda’s QUEENS OF SYRIA, in which Syrian refugee women perform an updated version of THE TROJAN WOMEN; Nujoom Al Ghanem’s SOUNDS OF THE SEA, following an old singer in his quest to sing folklore to local fishermen; and Nadine Salib’s MOTHER OF THE UNBORN, a portrait of an Egyptian woman stigmatized because of her inability to become pregnant.
what (not) to doc 