Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival 2024
The fourth edition of Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival returns to NYUAD Arts Center in Abu Dhabi, starting on Tuesday, October 24 with a talk titled Marine Biodiversity in the UAE with leading experts from the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi including Dr. Himansu Das, Dr. Hind Al Ameri, Nessrine Alzahlawi, Arabella Willing (moderator).
The film screenings will take place between October 25 - 27 at The Blue Hall at NYUAD Arts Center.
Founded by filmmaker, writer, and curator Nezar Andary, the theme of this year’s edition is All Living Beings, inspired from a line from the 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)
Here’s his statement about this year’s edition:
This year's festival seeks expressions of community between all living beings. Our films revere and appreciate many communities while asking the right questions so we not only survive climate change, but thrive 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 films from all over the world, we ask simply, how can we learn from all living beings? We highlight environmental film collectives such as UAE’s Climate Tribe, Rural Encounters from Lebanon, and others from Palestine and Japan in this year’s edition. We also seek elusive communities of being that we seldom think about.
The festival is free to attend, but online reservation is required.
Friday, October 25
7.00pm
Co-Creating with Nature: The Art of Circular Design (The Climate Tribe, 2024, UAE, 9 min)
Designer Reema Al Mheiri's mission to redefine waste leads her to repurpose discarded fish scales into stunning architectural floor lamps.
Wrought (Anna Sigrithur and Joel Penner, 2022, 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 (Sarvnik Kaur, 2023m, 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.
Saturday, October 26
2.00pm
Ma Poule / My Girl (Caroline Ophelier, 2023, 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 (Ken Loach, 1969, United Kingdom, 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.
5.00pm
Kawauso (Akihito Izuhara, 2023, 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.
Tree of Hell (Raed Zeno, 2024, Lebanon, 20 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.
The Red Turtle (Michaela Dudoka De Wita, 2016, 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
The Beekeeper’s Journey (The Climate Tribe, 2024, UAE, 9 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 (Michael Gitlin, 2023, USA, 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 (Tom Claudon and Dana Melaver, 2022, 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.
Sunday, October 27
3.00pm
Al Sidr Panel: "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.
Speakers: Dr. Brigette Howarth, Dr. Mark Beech, Ms. Sara Almarzooqi, Prof. Phil Manning, Dr. Peter C. Kjærgaard
5.00pm
Shift (Sherine Raffoul and Moussa Shabandar, Lebanon, 2024, 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 (Pema Tseden, 2023, 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 (Kim Elias Majdalani, 2019, Lebanon, 6 min)
There's a dead-zone on the southern borders of Lebanon, where wildlife thrives.
Revenge of Nature (Kim Elias Majdalani, 2019, Lebanon, 12 min)
How nature reclaims its territory through ecological succession after an area has been abandoned by humans.
Donkey in a Brahmin Village (John Abraham, 1977, India, 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...