After a successful first two months of screenings, ADFF @ The Pavilion Downtown Dubai continues with its next segment featuring four films from Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema 1960-Now, a program co-curated by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and ArteEast that traces the largely unknown heritage of personal, artistic and innovative cinema from the Arab world. In the 1960s, galvanized by a broader global vanguard of countercultural experimentation in the arts, filmmakers in the Arab countries began to craft a language and form that broke away from established conventions and commercial considerations, ultimately clearing the ground for boldly subjective cinematic expression. ADFF co-programmed and presented several films from Mapping Subjectivity during its fourth edition in 2010; the full program was presented at MoMA in New York.  The four films in this selection were among those shown in New York in the fall of 2010.

Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema 1960-Now is curated by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film, MoMA and Rasha Salti, Curator and Artistic Director, ArteEast.

Chronicle of a Disappearance
Directed by Elia Suleiman
Arabic, Hebrew, English, French | Palestine, USA, Germany, France | 1996 | 88 mins

In a series of witty vignettes, some contemplative, others laden with satiric humor and critique, Elia Suleiman expresses his emotions and state of mind as he observes daily life in Palestine. Through scenes of a Palestinian actress struggling to find an apartment in West Jerusalem, the owner of the Holy Land souvenir shop preparing merchandise for incoming Japanese tourists and a group of old women gossiping about their relatives, Suleiman leads us on a meditative search for what it means to be Palestinian.

Thursday, July 14 | 7:30 pm
Friday, July 15 | 5:30 & 7:30 pm