By Noura Darwish
ABU DHABI — Sascha Ritter, a CCMS assistant professor and the director of Zayed University Middle East Film Festival, says there is plenty of quality in the seventh edition of the celebration of Arab student filmmaking.
ZUMEFF will be held Sunday and Monday, May 1-2, 2016, at the Convention Centre on the Abu Dhabi campus of ZU.
Professor Ritter said there were 160 submissions this year, with 53 making the cut to be screened to the public, and some of the films are really outstanding.
“From all submissions, we shortlisted 16 finalists to compete for the awards,” Professor Ritter said.
There are four major awards categories: best of the best, narrative, documentary and animation. A fifth category is the aspiring filmmaker award.
According to Professor Ritter, both the idea of each film itself and the quality make a movie successful. If a film is well produced, it does not automatically mean it has a great idea/story and vice versa.
“So we are taking both into consideration,” Professor Ritter said. “Also, we get submissions from students in their first semester who are not even media students and on the other hand graduation projects from film students.”
Students in the COM 475 class that put on ZUMEFF are proud of this year’s choices for the screenings. Members of the Film Curation-Programming Committee said various traits enabled a film to make the cut. These include the strength of the narrative, the production values and the editing. The committee members shortlisted the finalists.
“Before we chose the movies to be screened during ZUMEFF, we watched them and rated them according to the plot, story, directing, filming and credits, and if they were offensive or not,” said Hend Abdulla Al Mansoori, who is the head of the Film Curation-Programming Committee. “Offensive movies — the ones that include drugs, guns, kissing, violence, saying bad words, political and religious things — were left out. After we rated all the movies, we chose the highest rated ones and those are the ones we will screen Sunday and Monday.”
Then those films that made the cut went to a jury of professionals from the film industry to chose the award winners.
The jury includes Majid Al Ansari, Alaa Karkouti, Butheina Kazim and John Kochanczyk. Mr. Ansari is the director of “Zinana” and was recently named Arab Filmmaker Of The Year. Mr. Karkouti is a film analyst, journalist and founder of MAD Solutions. Ms. Kazim is co-founder of Cinema Akil. Mr. Kochanczyk is a producer and sound editor at MILE Studios in Dubai.
The event is open to the public and is free of charge. Those coming to ZU-AD for the event should enter through Gate Three and park their cars under the Convention Centre.
The event opens with a 10 a.m. showing on Sunday of “The Tainted Veil” from Anasy Media. It is directed by Nahla Al Fahad, Mazen Al Khayrat and Ovidio Salazar.
The first full session of ZUMEFF 2016 will begin at noon on Sunday. The first film is the Emirati documentary “Made of Clay.” Another recommended film during the first session is “The Sheikh of Musaffah” by Waleed Al Mandani. Also in the first session will be “Naz,” a film by Reem Jadah, who is a ZU-Abu Dhabi communication student, as well as “The Little Black Book” from Tala Abusalim of the American University of Sharjah.
In the late Sunday afternoon session, among the recommended movies are “And to Life We Shall Return,” “Unfinished Tales: Fool’s Paradise,” “Tarwedih Shamali” and “Fade Out.” On Monday morning, recommended films include “Dyab,” “SAMIR Sheikh El Chabeb” and “Le Voluer de Casseroles.” In the early Monday afternoon session, featured films are “Beshkara” and “Tubby Dance.” Also on the early Monday afternoon slate is “A Memory in a Bottle” by ZU’s Eman Talal, Ameena Alhosani and Ms. Al Mansoori. In the final session, on late Monday afternoon, the top films include “Ana,” “The Salt Man,” “Cercles Brises” and “Dialling.”
ZUMEFF was established in 2010. That year, students AlYazyah Al Falasi and Reema Majed created the film festival as part of their senior project. Professor Alia Yunis supervised the project and served as the supervisor of ZUMEFF for the first four years of its existence. Now Professor Ritter is the supervisor and teacher of the COM 475 class that puts on ZUMEFF.
The main objective of ZUMEFF is to show off students’ films and encourage young filmmakers in the MENA region.
More than a thousand attended last year’s film festival, and Professor Ritter hopes that number will be exceeded this year.
Major sponsors this year include Etihad Airways, Fast Rent a Car, Park Rotana, Dubai International Film Festival and twofour54.
ZUMEFF 2016 fact box
- When: Sunday and Monday, May 1-2.
- Where: ZU-Abu Dhabi’s Sheikha Fatima Convention Centre.
- Website: http://zajelzu.ae/zumeff/.
- Parking: At the Convention Centre.
- What Edition of ZUMEFF: Seventh year.
- Who Can Attend: Open to the public.
- Cost: Free.
- Best of the Best for 2015: “With Thy Spirit.”
- Submissions: 160 this year; 53 films will be shown.
This story was originally published on April 27, 2016. It was re-uploaded on Dec. 29, 2020. The photo that accompanied this story was lost due to the loss of the domain name.
