A special 3-day film festival sponsored by Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi themed All Living Beings, featuring diverse films from across the world exploring environmental issues
This year’s festival takes inspiration from the holy Quran’s Surah Al An'am. All living beings roaming the earth and winged birds soaring in the sky are communities like yourselves (Quran 6:38).
Al Sidr seeks expressions of community between all living beings. Its films revere and appreciate many communities while asking key questions that move us towards not only surviving climate change, but also thriving together. The immense world of creatures allows our inner and outer lenses to explore new and elusive regions of our minds and hearts. The festival aims to forge communities that see, hear, and feel the planet in new perspectives; and, perhaps, as the Surah guides us, all living beings that fly and walk the earth will reciprocate with more compassion and insight.
From classic films of renowned directors Ken Loach (UK) and John Abraham (India) to recent films from all over the world, the festival asks simply, how can we learn from all living beings, and what new perspectives do all beings generously offer? Environmental film collectives such as UAE’s Climate Tribe, Lebanon’s Rural Encounters on Environment and Film, and others from Palestine, Tibet, Japan, and France are highlighted in this year’s edition. We also seek elusive communities of being that we seldom think about.
See the lineup:
October 24, Thursday
6:30pm
Panel Discussion - Environmental Agency Abu Dhabi presents Marine Biodiversity in the UAE
An introduction to Marine Biodiversity in the UAE with leading experts from the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi, including Dr. Himansu Das, Unit Head, Marine Endangered Species and Habitats, Dr. Hind Al Ameri, a Marine Conservation Scientist at the Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi, and Nessrine Alzahlawi, multilingual biodiversity conservation professional with 17 years of experience in biodiversity policy development. The panel is moderated by Arabella Willing, a British marine biologist known for her work with Hawksbill turtles and environmental outreach programmes.
October 25, Friday
7pm
Climate Tribe Short: Co-Creating with Nature: The Art of Circular Design - 9 min
Designer Reema Al Mheiri's mission to redefine waste leads her to repurpose discarded fish scales into stunning architectural floor lamps.
Wrought directed by Anna Sigrithur and Joel Penner (Canada) - 22 min
A short time lapse film exploring rot, fermentation and decay. Wrought unfolds a larger story about the ways humans create categories for the world around us that can be limiting. It explores (and challenges) terms like spoil, ferment, compost and rot as it coaxes audiences to decompose these categories and their associated binaries: self and other, human and non-human, and nature and culture. As the film title implies, we are all forged out of the relationships that transgress such binaries; we are all, indeed, wrought.
Against the Tide directed by Sarvnik Kaur (India/France) - 97 min
Two Indigenous fishermen are driven to desperation by a dying sea. Their friendship begins to fracture as they take different paths to provide for their struggling families.
October 26, Saturday
2pm
Ma Poule (My Girl) directed by Caroline Ophelie (France) - 18 min
Ever since the rooster died, Jasper’s only surviving hen has been plagued by depression. Forced to come down from the mountain where he lives far from everything, the septuagenarian sets out in search of companionship for his beloved gallinaceous friend.
Kes directed by Ken Loach (UK) - 110 min
Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes.
5pm
KAWAUSO directed by Akihito Izuhara (Japan) - 15 min
A girl is walking when a Japanese river otter catches up with her. The two try to communicate while the world threatens to sink under the weight of its consumer goods.
REEF Festival Short: Tree of Hell directed by Raed Zeno (Lebanon) - 24 min
Raed discovers by chance that the beautiful tree growing in front of his house is one of the invasive trees that threatens the environmental diversity in the Lebanese forest. He begins the journey of exploring this tree with his friend Hadi and Dr. Muhammad, who specializes in invasive plants, at a time when the country is exposed to another type of invasion represented by Israeli attacks on humans and their environment.
RED TURTLE directed by Michaela Dudoka De Wita (Japan/France) - 80 min
Turbulent waves, a storm and a capsized boat. Within one moment, a man is stranded alone on a desert island. He is not able to appreciate the golden sand, the limitless ocean or wild nature. Instead, he does everything he can to escape from it at the first opportunity. His perspective, however, changes when he meets a red turtle. Suspended between reality and a dream, this poetic story is an invitation to meditation on beauty, nature and the next stages of human life. An Oscar nominee and an award-winner from Cannes, this animation is the only production of legendary Studio Ghibli which was made outside Japan
7:30pm
Climate Tribe Short: The Bee Keeper’s Journey - 6 min
We follow beekeeper and ecologist, Aisha Hareb Al Dhaheri, whose passion for beekeeping raises awareness about the local ecosystem in the United Arab Emirates.
The Night Visitors directed by Michael Gitlin (US) - 72 min
The Night Visitors is a movie about moths. In large and small fragments, looking both inward and out, through a critical lens that is by turns social and personal, the film closely examines these underknown creatures. While The Night Visitors is interested in moths as organisms, with fascinating life histories, staggering biodiversity, and a functional importance as indicators of climate change and habitat degradation, its engagement with them is not primarily entomological. Instead, the film looks at moths as aesthetic beings and as carriers of meaning, aiming for a deep encounter with the beauty and incommensurability of the profoundly other.
Sleepless Birds directed by Tom Claudon and Dana Melaver (Germany) - 45 min
How does a tomato change our sense of time? At the border between science-fiction and documentary, Sleepless Birds tracks the rise of artificially-lit, industrial greenhouses in the French region of Bretagne. The film presents the environmental impact of grow lights on biodiversity, as well as on our rhythm and perception of time. In examining the case of agricultural light pollution, the film also raises questions about the unintended consequences of human attempts to overpower nature and control the elements.
October 27, Sunday
3pm
Panel Discussion - The Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi in Focus
This panel includes staff of the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi (NHMAD) who will discuss stories linking the past, present, and future, of natural history. From scientists, leaders in natural history to museum curators, this panel explores the role of natural history in presenting a profound understanding of our interconnected world. Hear from Dr. Peter C. Kjærgaard, Director of the NHMAD, Prof. Phil Manning, Director of Science, Sara Almarzooqi, Assistant Curator, Dr. Mark Beech, Curatorial and Scientific Lead, and Dr. Brigitte Howarth, Curator of Entomology.
5pm
REEF Festival Short: Shift directed by Sherine Raffoul and Moussa Shabandar - 18 min
Sherine Raffoul and Moussa Shabandar capture the words of Chadi Saad in the high Lebanese mountains. The audience witnesses a poignant testimony from a man who was once a hunter, now condemning bird hunting as criminal. Chadi attributes his change in perspective to the beautiful colors of the birds and his readings, notably those of Spinoza, who revealed to him that man and nature are one. This documentary highlights the importance of a philosophical and scientific understanding, along with the necessity of documenting migratory birds and those seeking refuge in the heart of Lebanon.
Snow Leopard directed by Pema Tseden (China) - 109 min
This is a story about how people and animals finally get along. A snow leopard breaks into the sheep pen of a nomad and kills nine rams. Father and son then argue: the son insists on killing the snow leopard, but the father insists on releasing it.
7:30pm
No Man’s Land directed by Kim Elias Majdalani (Lebanon) - 6 min
There's a dead-zone on the southern borders of Lebanon, where wildlife thrives.
Revenge of Nature directed by Kim Elias Majdalani (Lebanon) - 12 min
How nature reclaims its territory through ecological succession after an area has been abandoned by humans.
Donkey in a Brahmin Village directed by John Abraham - 90 min
A high-caste Brahmin college professor adopts a newborn donkey when its mother is killed, and brings it to his village, against the norms of his community. Villagers later kill the donkey attributing to it some bad things that happen, but later start to assign a kind of divinity to the animal…
Biography
Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival
The Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival believes the scope of the environmental issues, such as climate change, can make the subjects distant, abstract, and disconnected to our present. Therefore, we believe it’s the role of artists and gifted communicators to help inspire and stimulate audiences to understand the threats to our planet. We want to make them more visceral, textured, and intimate.
Each year, Al Sidr Environmental Festival not only focuses on a theme, but also seeks to curate both cinematic and artistic achievement at the highest levels. Our films provoke emotional experience and stimulate intellectual ideas. We search for films that represent environmental movements and science in both sophistication and elegant nuance.We differentiate ourselves from media and public relations videos as the films should be created to open audiences to envision new perspectives on the environment and climate change. Finally, we strive to create safe and ethical ways for our city festivals to present themselves-ethical in terms of promoting sustainability.
Nezar Andary
Nezar Andary is a filmmaker, writer, and curator. His award winning film, Unlocking Doors of Cinema (2020) that screened in over 20 film festivals from the Cairo International Film Festival to San Francisco Documentary Festival to Doc Lisboa in Portugal. He recently finished production of a film Hayy Ibn Filastin on visual artist Tarek Al Ghoussein’s final project, Odyesseus AD. He is widely published in literature and history and currently co-edits a book series for Palgrave entitled Focus on Arab Cinema. He has been the Artistic Director of Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival for the last 4 years. He is also Artistic Director of the Performing Books Season with the House of Wisdom in Sharjah. Currently, he is writing two film projects entitled No Barking and The Guilt Project.
