Birkat Al Sheikh (The Sheik’s Pool) opened the first Lebanese Arab Film Festival, established by the Al-Hariri Foundation, on Friday. The movie has received various honorary awards, including one from the Arab World Institute in Paris this year.
According to Al Safir newspaper, the head of the Arab World Institute, Kamil Kabana, who attended the Arab Film Festival opening ceremony, said that the participating movies, submitted by a range of countries including Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan and France, are narratives that have been honored by the Institute. The Sudanese movie Birkat AL Sheikh, was awarded a letter of appreciation by the institute for a long narrative film. It depicts the humanitarian story of Sudanese generation living in the countryside and the uncanny relationships between men and women.
The movie, the first Sudanese film to show at a Festival, was directed by Jadallah Jbara.
According to Jbara, the movie’s main theme, the burden of magic, is the result of a social problem. The Sudanese’s problem is that magic is a part of their everyday lives. Sometimes it is a result of ignorance, sometimes it is a matter of religion, and sometimes it is the suffering,” he explained.
“In this movie, I try to bring these problems to the surface, in order to make people aware of their consequences,” he added.
Meanwhile, the first ever Lebanese Arab Film Festival, includes a workshop for Arab Woman’s Issues in film and TV, which is given by various movie stars, critics, researchers and academics from Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria and Palestine – Albawaba.com.
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