The sixth edition of the Amman Intl Film Festival – Awal Film (AIFF) will be remembered for the calm professionalism it showed in the face of regional tensions, carrying on without fuss or drama during one of the hottest periods in Middle East hostilities. Though the guest list dropped to 130 after cancelations, it was perhaps the right, manageable number for a special year.
“This past year and a half have been a period of hardship and distress in our region,” remarked festival director and co-founder Nada Doumani, recalling recent the humanitarian tragedies in Sudan, Lebanon, Yemen and Palestine. “We’ve come to understand the urgent need to tell our own stories and represent our narratives as they are.”
Just weeks after Iranian missiles and drones fired at Israel passed over Jordanian airspace, sinisterly visible in the night sky, the festival got underway without a hitch, unfolding in the ancient capital from July 2 to 10. From their headquarters in downtown Amman, organizers programmed the screenings of 62 films in three venues, including the historic Rainbow Theater and the Royal Film Commission’s outdoor venue with a superb view of the city’s hills, along with the Taj Cinema multiplex.
Although the festival kept the red carpet in the closet and requested that festivities be muted in recognition of the ongoing tragedy in Gaza, the opening and closing ceremonies had a quiet dignity. Along with 11 films from Jordan, Palestinian cinema was the most viewed. It has been in high demand at Arab festivals these last years, coinciding with and reflecting on the conflagration in Gaza. With Jordan’s large Palestinian population topping 3 million, Palestinian films found a warm welcome in Amman, where the raw truth of the war and its horrors are known and openly discussed. In the words of the festival’s President and co-founder Princess Rym Ali, “Today, after two harrowing years where words like ‘genocide’ and ‘ceasefire’ were slow to gain international recognition, we underline the urgency of telling our own stories honestly and unapologetically.”
Producers Rashid Masharawi and Laura Nikolov brought to Amman the world premiere of From Ground Zero +, a five-film continuation of last year’s seminal Gaza compilation. It includes Mohammad Al-Shakri’s epic portrait of Hassan, a teenage boy separated from his family and forced to survive on his own in southern Gaza, as well as the stand-alone feature by Abdulrahman Sabbah, The Clown of Gaza. The life of a plucky street performer embodies the anxiety, hope and resilience of displaced Palestinians.
Winning the Jury Award in the Arab Narrative Feature section was Mahdi Fleifel’s acclaimed film about Palestinian refugees navigating a harsh and brutal world in Greece, To a Land Unknown. Yet another film that immersed its audience in the raw experience of Gaza was Areeb Zuaiter’s lively and unexpected Yalla Parkour, integrating real videos of daring parkour athletes climbing and jumping from bombed-out buildings in a multi-layered documentary. The talented Zuaiter is also head of programming at the festival.
Leading Palestinian actor and filmmaker Mohammad Bakri was on hand on opening night to support the short film Upshot, which opened the festival. Directed by Maha Hajj, it spins a quietly moving tale around a shocking family tragedy and how an elderly couple deals with it.
Among the other excellent Arab titles screening was Lotfi Achour’s electrifying tale from Tunisia – based on a true story – of a young shepherd boy traumatized when he and his teenage cousin venture into a remote cove for a swim and are captured by ISIS. Only one of them will survive. Red Path won the top award, the Black Iris, in the Arab Feature-Length Narrative section, as well as the Audience Award. From Iraq comes another tale of a young farm boy who is a witness to history. Oday Rasheed’s Songs of Adam masterfully evokes a timeless Iraqi society of Mesopotamian farmers from WW2 to the present. The two excellent young leads, Ali Helali in Red Path and Azzam Ahmed in Songs of Adam, shared a much-deserved Special Mention for Best First-Time Lead Actor.
Similarly, shared themes led to shared prizes in the Arab Feature Documentaries category, where the Black Iris was split between the comic-tragic Moroccan portrait of a domineering mom and her five daughters, (Y)our Mother by Samira El Mouzghibati, and a daughter’s attempts to reconnect with her aged father in Tripoli in the often humorous We Are Inside directed by Farah Kassem.
Winning the Non-Arab Film Award was an American doc by Sarah Friedland, the much-admired Familiar Touch, set in a care home for artists with memory loss. And in the Arab Short Films section, the Black Iris went to A Passing Day by Rasha Shahin, a Cairo-based filmmaker raised in Syria, who describes the brief encounter between two strangers in a city scarred by war.
Finally, the Fipresci Award – given on the 100th anniversary of the venerable international critics association, founded in 1925 – went to the powerful Egyptian prison documentary by Bassam Mortada, Abo Zaabel 89.
A reprieve from intense stories about war and displacement was offered by the events surrounding Ireland as Guest Country of Honor, represented by the acclaimed director Jim Sheridan. Articulate and amusing, Sheridan talked about his theatrical origins and recited poetry, as well as speaking out frankly about world politics. His conversation with leading Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah unfolded around dramatic excerpts from In the Name of the Father and My Left Foot.
