YALLAH, YALLAH, BEENAH!
Genre
Experimental
Running time
19 minutes
Year
2022
Language
Arabic
Subtitle
English
Country
Saudi Arabia
Director
Mohammed Hammad
Bio
Producer
Nouhad Hachicho, Mohammed Hammad, Mohammed Jastaniah
Cast
Jameel Ayyach, Elias Sultan
Scriptwriter
Mohammed Hammad
Away we go down the rabbit hole into a fun fantasy. A film junkie, whose house is a shrine to cinema, revels in describing his wares to a documentary film crew when presto, we find ourselves slipping through a wormhole. In a parallel universe, a gang of pre-teen kids are sent on a psychedelic mission to save humanity and escape the spell laid on them by a coven of witches. This film is supported by the Red Sea Fund.
Other movies
RAVENS
Director: Mark Gill
Acclaimed Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase, who died in 2012, was best known in his lifetime for his photographic book The Solitude of Ravens (1976-82), with its bleak images of distant birds evoking themes of isolation and tragedy. That work was his response to his divorce from his second wife of 13 years, Yoko Wanibe, which left him devastated. During their tumultuous years together, he photographed her constantly; she was a model, collaborator and object of his obsession. Tadanobu Asano, who was Emmy-nominated for Shogun, plays Fukase in this intense portrait of a passionate man caught in a love triangle between his wife and his art, incarnated here as a talking raven – a humorous touch to this profound exploration of love and loss.
AÏCHA
Director: Mehdi M. Barsaoui
Aya is the sole survivor of a bus crash on a mountain road. When she realises that nobody knows she is alive, she makes a snap decision to escape her dead-end village existence and become someone else. In thriving, liberal Tunis, she calls herself Amira, a thrilling change until one of those men is murdered and the investigating police start to question “Amira”’s sketchy life story. Fatma Sfar is vivid and immediately sympathetic as Aya/Amira, while narrative twists and nested details gradually reveal that she isn’t the only trickster with something to hide. Aicha was judged Best Mediterranean Film from the Academy of Fine Arts at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
