Amman 2024 Review: MY SWEET LAND, And The Usefulness Of Having Dreams
August 8, 2024
The closing awards ceremony of the fifth edition of the Amman International Film Festival – Awal Film were held on the 11th of juli at the Royal Film Commission – Jordan, one of the most scenic movie theatres in the world. Next to the screen you have a view over the city and its lights, scattered densely over the steeps hills on which the city is built.
However competing the scenery is, the movies in competition and their makers are the real winners of a truly interesting, intimate and welcoming Film Festival. In the Arab Feature-Length Narrative Competition the Black Iris Award went to the exiting and beautifully casted Hounds (Les Meutes) by Kamal Lazraq (Morocco) about a crime going horribly wrong; the Jury Award went to The Burdened about a family amidst civil war by Amr Gamal (Yemen). Both movies also gained Special Mentions for First-Time Lead Actor: Abdellatif Masstouri and for first time lead Actress for Abeer Mohamed. The well deserved Audience Award in this catagory went to Inshallah a Boy by Amjad Al Rasheed (Jordan) telling the story of a widow struggling with the discriminating particularities of traditional heritage laws.
Over nine days, the festival showcased 52 films from 28 countries. The other competitive sections were the Arab Feature-Length Arab Documentary Competition, the Arab Shorts Competition and International Films Competition
In the Documentary Competition the wonderfully crafted Q (Qaaf) by Jude Chehab about an Arab all-women Islamic sect in Lebanon and My Sweet Land by Sareen Hairabedian (Jordan) on the end of the republic of Artsakh were the big prize winners. The latter also gained the FIPRESCI Award, and you can read my review here.
The Black Iris Awards in the Arab Shorts Competition went to the gender drama Our Males and Females by Ahmad Alyaseer (Jordan) about the extraordinary tragic dilemma’s a traditional pair faces when they have to bury their transgender child and The Woodland by Firas Taybeh (Jordan). Jury Award: Canary in a Coal Mine by Dwan Kaoukji (Lebanon) Audience Award: SUKOUN (Amplified) – Dina Naser (Jordan). The International Films Competition Black Iris and Audience Award went to The Strangers’ Case about refugees from war and disaster by Brandt Andersen (USA)
As a guest or visitor of the intimate and very welcoming Amman International Film Festival (AIFF), you could in theory forget that on 1 hour distance by car there is a brutal war going on in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. You could, but you would not. Many of the films and meetings around the extensive UNRWA archives from Gaza and Palestine that take place during the festival, breathe the human disasters of the surrounding landscape of the Middle East in this quiet enclave.
Not only the prize winning films mentioned above but also many of the films not in competition. From the opening film Bye, Bye, Tiberias, made by Lina Soualem, daughter of international theatre and movie actress Hiam Abbass, via the through form and subject wondrous From Ground Zero, coordinated and coached by veteran Palestine filmmaker Rashid Mashrawi, and many more films, the festival does never turn its back to its surrounding and rich and sometimes tragic Middle Eastern heritage.
The world of the Middle East is, as the world at large, full of paradoxes. The festival succeeded in reflecting this often complicated, sometimes harsh and also beautiful reality in a seemingly harmonious way. With hindsight this was the case from the end with more abstract The red sea makes me wanna cry to the beginning with the personal portrayal of Hiam Abbass and her sisters. We will and hope to hear more from Jude Chehab, Kamal Lazraq, Sareen Hairabedian and the many others whose movies made an unforgettable impression here on the 5th AIFF and its fascinating guests and organizers.
