Malmö Arab Film Festival: Screenings, Discussions and Activities Continue

On the Third Day of Malmö Arab Film Festival: Screenings, Discussions and Activities Continue

The third day of Malmö Arab Film Festival (Friday, 6 May) witnessed many activities directed to the audience of Malmo and to the Arab and Scandinavian filmmakers attending the festival.

At the Scandic Triangeln Hotel, the pitching sessions for the projects taking part in Malmö Industry Days (MID) continued with two categories: short-film projects in development, in which six projects are competing, and the post-production feature documentaries, with seven projects participating.

MID also witnessed several important sessions, which started with a case study on the movie “Farha”, as a model for Swedish-Arab co-production, as the film is a Jordanian-Swedish-Saudi production. Film director Darin J. Sallam and Swedish producer Willian Johansson spoke about the experience of collaborating in making the film, which won a special mention from Red Sea Film Festival and three awards from Aswan Women Film Festival.

This was followed by a panel discussion entitled “How to nudge governments to support filmmaking better?”, in which Kristina Borjeson, Head of production in Film I Vast, Joachim Rang Strand, Head of production in Film I Skane, Muhannad Bakri, Jordanian Royal Film Commission managing director, Palestinian producer Layaly Badr and Saudi producer Fahad Alsuwayan spoke. The discussion was moderated by Swedish expert Pernilla Frykholm.

As part of the “Bridge of Talents ” program for training young Saudi artists, an open discussion was held that brought together the workshop participants with Arab acting stars Jamal Suleiman, George Khabbaz and Sherry Adel, who spoke about their careers and transferred part of their experience to the young trainees.

Panora Cinema witness the screening of three short films produced in cooperation between the Jordanian Royal Film Commission and Malmö Arab Film Festival as part of a program entitled “Voices Amplified”, the first edition of which was held throughout the year to develop and produce Jordanian short films under the supervision of Swedish experts.

In Panora also, a rich program of festival films was screened, including five films from the feature film competition, which are “Life Suits Me Well” by Moroccan Al Hadi Ulad Mohand, “A Second Life” by Tunisian Anis Lassoued, “The Stranger” by Syrian Ameer Fakher Eldin, “Junoon” by Saudi brothers Maan B. and Yasser B., and “Abo Saddam” by Egyptian Nadine Khan.

From the Documentary Film Competition, three films were screened: “The Blue Inmates” by Lebanese Zeina Daccache, ” Diary of Gabrielle Street” by Palestinian Rashid Masharawi, and ” Were it not for Metro” by Lebanese Georges Hachem. In addition to the second program of the short film competition, and the program of short films representing Saudi cinema as the festival’s guest of honour.

From the Arabian Nights program, “Today is a Wonderful Day” by Egyptian Neveen Shalaby was screened, and from Films Worth Watching program, “Beirut: Eyes of the Storm” by Palestinian Mai Masri was screened.

Malmö – May 6, 2022