Furrows and Forks in Emirati Short Films: Sabeel and Dreams of Rice

Abstract

"Although the first known Emirati feature film, عابر سبيل (The Wayfarer), dates back to 1988 (Yunis 55), there is still no established infrastructure for an actual film industry in the United Arab Emirates.... the results of approximately three decades of filmmaking in Dubai and other parts of the country can be considered “fresh” when compared to the century’s worth of output from Hollywood, Bollywood, or the Egyptian film industry.... only three Emirati feature films had been screened in the multiplexes prior to 2013: Ali F. Mostafa’s City of Life (2010),1 Nawaf Al-Janahi’s Sea Shadow (2011), and Saeed Al Murry’s Sun Dress (2010). This list has grown steadily since 2013, with the theatrical releases of Ahmed Zain’s Grandmother’s Farm I and II (2013 and 2015), Mostafa’s second feature From A to B (2014), and Majid Al Ansari’s Zinzana (2015), among others that exhibit a great variety in production value. With the exception of Zinzana, all the movies mentioned above depict various landscapes, urban and rural, throughout the United Arab Emirates, and feature characters who move through the country’s terrains along forking roads and furrowed paths. The aim of this essay is to examine the theme of the path in Emirati short films, focusing on short rather than feature films because the former better emphasize the poetic element of the theme and lay the groundwork for a movement that has the potential to grow into an industry. The path is particularly significant because it highlights representations of landscape and maps a new screen setting. This mapping further claims a presence for Emirati film within the discourse of World Cinema."