JEDDAH: The Saudi film “Wake me up,” by director Reem Al-Bayyat, has won the best director award at the Milan Film Festival (MFF), reported Sayidaty. Earlier, the film won the best film award at the Madrid International Film Festival (MIFF).
Stars of the film are Ibrahim Al-Hasawi, Samar Al-Bayyat and Ahd Kamil. The film won a series of awards including for best direction at the Madrid International Film Festival in the category of short films.
The film tells a story about a single woman named “Salam” who is in her early 40s. She has sons and daughters who are living away from her and, hence, she suffers from loneliness and a negative attitude toward her from society. However, she secretly works as a dancing trainer but insists on restoring her artistic hobby in the face of community rejection.
Therefore, the film came to reflect the suffering of Saudi women amid the “social hypocrisy” around her, a matter that brought her to a difficult state of psychosis which was aggravated by using tranquilizers.
The film was first shown at the Dubai Film Festival (DFF) and was selected among the best GCC short films in the film competition.
Reem Al-Bayyat is a Saudi film director and photographer. She obtained a certificate in photography form the British Institute of Arts in 2005. She attended a training course in film direction from the same Institute in 2008. She prepared a series of film works reflecting Saudi women’s issues.
She began her first film experience with “Domya” (Doll) and “Zilal” (Shades) together with her latest work with the film “Wake me up.”
Saudi director wins prize at Milan Film Festival
Saudi director wins prize at Milan Film Festival
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
