ALL IN ONE NIGHT ( AION )
Director: Thoraya Akram
Sometimes colours just choose you, as Malik says to a woman who asks why he chose yellow Converse shoes. But Malik hasn’t actually chosen anything. An introverted young man, he is usually to be found in his bedroom, listening to vinyl records and solving his Rubik's cube. His routine is disrupted when he discovers an imaginary friend living in a pair of Converse shoes found in the basket of laundry the maid delivers to his door. The shoes nag at him to get out of his room, force him on to a bicycle and then introduce him to the local nightlife. It is a journey that will challenge his fears and broaden his horizons.
THE POST
Director: Zakaria Albashir
Six customers are in the post office when a 50-year-old employee collapses and dies. When an ambulance arrives, the paramedics in attendance conclude that he died of natural causes. The six witnesses all doubt this, each interpreting this sudden death from a personal point of view. One young man tells his psychiatrist he believes it was suicide; another witness accuses the dead man of drinking too much coffee; yet another is convinced he worked himself into the grave out of devotion to his family. Each story says way more about the teller than it does about the man who died.
UNDERGROUND
Director: Abdulrahman Sandokji
A heavy-metal drummer, a DJ working with electronic music, a reticent songwriter uploading her Hijazi songs to the internet and finding an audience, an X-factor winning singer: these are just some of the talents emerging in Saudi Arabia’s nascent music industry. Older musos remember being inspired by tapes of the Beatles; one guitarist recalls how hard it was to teach himself how to play guitar without teachers or community support, while practicing in an abandoned house. For all of these engaging artists, music is central to life.
SUGAR
Director: Khalid Bin Waleed
Abdulmalik’s brother has died suddenly but, even as the family’s men gather in remembrance, he hides the truth from his blind father. When an uncle delivers the dead man’s clothes, Abdulmalik starts wearing his signet ring to avoid telling the truth. Does his father suspect, anyway? When his rosary breaks, he tells his surviving son it had reached the end of its life and cannot be mended. Abdulmalik sets about restringing the beads, but his father’s words are an omen.