YALLAH, YALLAH, BEENAH!
Other movies
ABDO & SANEYA
Director: Omar Bakry
A wonderful reminder of the power of silent film, Omar Bakri’s film is shot without dialogue in dramatic black and white. Egyptian farmer Abdo and his wife Saniya are desperate for a child, which leads them on a daunting journey to New York City for infertility treatment. The treatment itself is intimidating but the couple faces an additional hurdle: they don't speak the language and are unfamiliar with the American way of life. This musical drama has all the magic and direct emotion of early cinema – laughter, tears and love surge through it - but with very modern-day heroes in Abdo and Saniya. The Jeddah audience is sure to be captivated by this innovative take on a classic genre.
MONSIEUR AZNAVOUR
Director: Mehdi Idir
Charles Aznavour, the son of Armenian immigrants who became a defining voice of France, died in 2018 aged 94. Two years later, his sons, Mischa and Nicolas, announced they had been working with their father on a biopic to be released this year: Aznavour’s centenary. This stunning musical drama is an intimate portrait of the artist’s life that's packed with biographical information. Growing up in poverty gave him an unswerving determination to reach the top; by the 1940s, he was playing cabarets with Pierre Roche, but his ambition was a solo career and a mass audience. Tahir Rahim plays Aznavour in a drama punctuated with disarmingly honest anecdotes from family members, giving us both the man and, of course, his music.