Ahmed Shawky named critics jury president at Berlin film fest as Arab film ‘Yunan’ joins Golden Bear race
Updated 04 February 2025
Arab News
DUBAI: Veteran Egyptian director Ahmed Shawky was appointed president of the critics jury at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival this week, coinciding with the festival’s announcement that the Arab film “Yunan” will compete for the top Golden Bear prize.
The festival is scheduled to take place from Feb. 13-23.
Shawky will preside over the largest jury panel convened annually by the International Federation of Film Critics, guiding 12 international critics in assessing films across different festival categories.
Alongside serving as jury president, he will also join the international competition jury, where he will work alongside critics Maja Korbecka from Poland and Francisca Romero Pezoa from Chile.
Meanwhile, “Yunan” is directed and written by Syrian filmmaker Ameer Fakher Eldin.
It is among the 19 films competing for the Golden Bear and is the only Arab film featured in the main competition lineup.
“Yunan” first premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where it secured the Edipo Re Award in 2021.
It also received several recognitions, including the Best Arab Film Award and the Shadi Abdel-Salam Award for Best Film at the Cairo International Film Festival.
The film tells the story of an Arab writer who, feeling lost in exile in Hamburg, travels to a secluded island in the North Sea with thoughts of ending his life. There, he meets an elderly woman who helps him rediscover his desire to live.
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Salman joins King Charles at Royal Ascot opening
Updated 6 sec ago
Arab News
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud joined the UK’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Royal Ascot, one of the most prestigious equestrian racing events in the world.
Video of carriage 1 in the Carriage Procession at Day 1 of 2025 Royal Ascot
King Charles & Queen Camilla
Prince Faisal bin Salman Al Saud
(Horse Race Owner)
Prince Faisal appeared alongside the British royals in the lead royal carriage that opened the official procession.
Following the royal procession, Prince Faisal joined members of the British royal family in the royal enclosure to watch the first day of races. (Getty Images)
Following the royal procession, Prince Faisal, a grandson of King Abdulaziz and son of King Salman, joined members of the British royal family, including Princess Beatrice and Zara Tindall, in the royal enclosure to watch the first day of races.
Royal Ascot remains a major fixture on the British social calendar, drawing global political and royal elites.
Arab royalty has played an increasingly visible role at the event in recent years. In 2024, Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa of Bahrain — the crown prince and prime minister — attended the event as a guest of honor, representing Bahrain’s royal family.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar, has become a prominent figure in the racing world through his Wathnan Racing team.
The organization has achieved notable success at Royal Ascot, including a win in the 2023 Gold Cup.
Queen Camilla, King Charles III and Prince Saud bin Khalid Abdullah attended day 2 of Royal Ascot 2023 at Ascot Racecourse in Ascot, England. (Getty Images)
Prince Saud bin Khalid — son of the late Prince Khalid bin Abdullah Al-Saud, the legendary Saudi breeder behind Juddmonte Farms — was also seen attending the second day of the Royal Ascot in 2023, alongside King Charles III.
DUBAI: Dubai-based designer Alina Anwar, founder of Alina Anwar Couture, this week appeared on a digital billboard in Times Square, New York.
Well known for dressing celebrities in Hollywood and Bollywood, including Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, Kareena Kapoor and Idina Menzel, Anwar has expanded her reach internationally with her gowns and suits.
The billboard featured Anwar, who is famous for her structured silhouettes and feminine designs, wearing a red sequined skirt from her own collection, accompanied by her brand’s statement: “My aim is to empower women through powerful dressing and to set them on a path of personal freedom and possibilities.”
In a statement she said: “I created this brand to empower women, to make them feel confident, unstoppable and seen. To have that vision now broadcast in Times Square is surreal, but it’s also just the beginning.”
Anwar’s brand is a luxury eveningwear label that creates gowns and tea-length dresses using contemporary couture techniques and French finishing. The brand’s pieces feature fine fabrics and detailed tailoring, and are made in the UAE.
In 2019, her work gained global attention when US singer Mariah Carey wore one of her designs in a remake of the “All I Want for Christmas Is You” music video, released to mark the song’s 25th anniversary. Carey wore a pine green, fully sequined, long-sleeved cocktail dress with a scooped neckline, designed by Anwar.
“I hope to see more and more Hollywood stars wear my brand and as a Dubai-based fashion label, I am so overwhelmed by the trust that they are giving me. I am here to advocate UAE-made products (that) are world-class,” Anwar said at the time.
Anwar is not the only regional figure to appear on a Times Square billboard.
Several Arab artists have featured in recent years.
Egyptian singer Amr Diab became the first Arab musical artist to appear on a Spotify billboard in Times Square in 2019.
Since then, others have followed, including Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna, who was featured in December as part of Spotify Arabia’s “EQUAL” campaign spotlighting female artists from the region.
British Lebanese actress Razane Jammal authors children’s book
Updated 16 June 2025
Arab News
DUBAI: British Lebanese actress Razane Jammal is set to release a children’s book titled “Lulu & Blu.”
The actress, famous for her roles in Netflix series “The Sandman” and “Paranormal,” took to social media on Sunday to share the news, writing: “What started as a little story I wrote seven years ago turned into a book for your little ones. I’ve poured my (heart) into this and I’m thrilled to invite you all to our first launch in Beirut.”
The launch event is scheduled to take place on June 25 at community space Minus 1 in the Lebanese capital. The actress will perform a reading of the children’s story, which tells the tale of a “vegetarian lioness, a friendly fish and their most unusual friendship,” according to the author.
Published by Turning Point Books, the story was illustrated by Sasha Haddad, a Lebanese illustrator who graduated from Cambridge School of Arts in 2014.
In the role that arguably shot her to stardom, Jammal played Lyta Hall in 2022’s “The Sandman,” based on the legendary graphic novels.
Her character dreams of her dead husband each night, slowly realizing that he is not a figment of her imagination but is hiding out in the dream world.
It is a part that Jammal managed to play truthfully with subtlety — a subtlety for which she credited her mother in a previous interview with Arab News.
“I’ve always been extra, and my mom was far more subtle than I am. I had to fine-tune myself to vibrate on her frequency, a frequency that was very sweet and very raw, and vulnerable and nurturing. I took that from her.
“I grew up having a simple, community-based life in a place where you have 500 mothers and everyone feeds you and you feel safe — even if it’s not safe at all. At the same time we went through so many traumas, from civil wars to assassinations to losing all our money in another financial crisis.”
Middle Eastern content creators unveil bold short films in collaboration with YouTube
Updated 17 June 2025
Celine Hijazi
DUBAI: Some of the region’s most celebrated content creators — including Bahrain’s Omar Farooq, the UAE’s Anas Bukhash, Morocco’s Taha Essou, Palestine’s Haifa Beseisso and Egypt’s Sherif Nabil — have premiered powerful short films in collaboration with YouTube to mark the platform’s 20th anniversary.
“For years, creating and distributing entertainment was limited to major studios. Today, we’re at an inflection point — YouTube creators are the entertainment industry’s new startups,” said Tarek Amin, YouTube’s regional director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkiye, during the premiere in Dubai this weekend.
These creators, who amass billions of views across their channels, showcased deeply personal stories that transcend borders and languages, highlighting YouTube’s role as a platform for emotional storytelling and global connection.
The shift reflects a wider trend across the region with YouTube creators across the Middle East and North Africa rapidly becoming entertainment startups.
Companies such as Telfaz11, which has offices in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have scaled from popular YouTube series to successful feature films.
Bukhash’s signature charm and curiosity is reflected in his film “ABtalks Diaries: Korea Edition.” The work follows him on a journey through South Korea where he interviews chefs, artists, and members of the public.
Despite a glaring language barrier, Bukhash draws out surprisingly intimate moments, proving that vulnerability is a universal language. “We did this because we realized Arabs are obsessed with K-Pop,” Bukhash joked on stage.
In “Into the Dark,” Beseisso documents her four-day stay in a darkness retreat. Blending humor and reflection, her film becomes a deeply personal meditation on silence, emotion and reconnection — with herself and others.
“I heard about the darkness retreat from a friend and was intrigued,” she told Arab News. “I went, closed my eyes for three days, and it turned out to be one of my favorite experiences.”
In “Into the Fire: Mount Ijen,” Nabil documents the harsh realities of sulfur miners working in Indonesia’s active volcanic mountain. He exposes the conditions these workers face and the generational impact of their labor.
“YouTube gives you that intimacy,” Nabil said. “It’s a challenge, but it’s rewarding.”
The connection between these filmmakers lies in their ability to confront discomfort, explore untold stories, and share them with candor.
“This event is not for us,” Bukhash reflected. “It’s for the people at home wondering if they should start, and need that extra push.”
Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi presents ‘The Social Health Club’ in Basel
Updated 15 June 2025
Jasmine Bager
RIYADH: This month, Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi is turning up the heat at Basel Social Club — which runs until June 21 in the Swiss city — with her latest installation, “The Social Health Club.”
Freshly conceived, but rooted in the artist’s past works, the yellow-drenched installation offers a layered, sensory experience — and sharp cultural commentary — as well as a first for the artist: a live-performance element.
Jeddah-based Alamoudi is known for creating immersive multimedia installations drawing from and exploring the complex dynamics of her evolving homeland. “The Social Health Club” is built around pieces found in Jeddah’s Haraj market in 2018 — a range of exercise equipment including a rowing machine.
Ahaad Alamoudi. (Supplied)
“These are pieces I collected from thrifting. I like the fact that no instructions came with the machines — I don’t have their name or the source of where they came from or who made them. But they’ve become part of the urban landscape that I’ve been in. And I was trying to create fun within the space,” Alamoudi told Arab News.
In “The Social Health Club,” the equipment, painted predominantly in vibrantly-saturated monochrome yellow, stands untouched, serving as symbols of a culture obsessed with self-optimization. At the core of the installation is a cameo from a yellow-painted iron previously featured in her 2020 video work “Makwah Man.” (Makwah means iron in Arabic.)
Part of Ahaad Alamoudi's 'The Social Health Club' at Basel Social Club. (Supplied)
“A lot of my pieces stem from a narrative I create within a video. In ‘Makwah Man,’ this man wearing a yellow thobe is ironing a long piece of yellow fabric in the middle of the desert. And as he’s ironing, he tells us how to live our lives. But in the process of him telling us how to live our lives, he also starts questioning his own in the process — understanding the role of power, understanding the pressure of change, adaptation,” Alamoudi explained.
“The yellow exists within the video piece, but he’s also wearing yellow thobe in the video piece. And (in this iteration at Art Basel) there’s also a rack of yellow thobes twirling in the exhibition. For me, the yellow thobe is like a unifying symbol. I’m trying to say that we’re all experiencing this in different ways. So in the performance (for “The Social Health Club”) a man (a local body builder) in a yellow thobe will be performing on these machines. He has no rule book. He doesn’t know anything; he doesn’t know how to ‘properly’ use the equipment. He’s going to go into the space and do things with the machines.
“The performance will be recorded. But I think it’s more like an activation,” she continued. “It’s not the piece itself. The piece itself exists as the machines.”
“The Social Health Club” was shaped through close collaboration with curator Amal Khalaf, who combed Jeddah’s market with Alamoudi in search of “machines that were a little bit abnormal, like not your typical machines that people would directly know what it is in the gym,” Alamoudi said.
“She’s quite incredible,” she continued. “And we really built the space together. Essentially, the main thing that I created was the video; everything else was built off of that. She really helped. She really looked at social change and how we navigate that. Our collaboration was perfect.”
Yellow dominates every inch of the piece—deliberately and intensely.
“I obsess over symbols within certain works I create. And with that also comes a color,” Alamoudi said. “I wanted to showcase something that was luxurious, colorful, almost like gold, but it’s not gold. It’s quite stark in its appearance.”
Yellow is both invitation and warning. “I think that yellow is also quite deceptive. I like it as a color to get people excited to come closer and see what’s happening, but at the same time question what it is — it’s so aggressive that it becomes a bit uncomfortable.”
A still from Alamoudi's 2020 video work 'Makwah Man,' which is also part of 'The Social Health Club'. (Supplied)
The viewer’s interaction is critical to the piece’s meaning.
“I think the machines represent something and they carry something, but they really are activated by the people — what people are doing with them,” Alamoudi said. “And that’s why I’m encouraging a lot of viewers to engage with and use the pieces, or try to use them without any instruction. A lot of people entering into the space (might) fear even touching or engaging with them. Having the performer there activating the structures is going to add another layer to the piece itself.”
She hopes visitors feel free to explore, unburdened by expectations.
“People are meant to use it any way that they want to use it. They can sit on it, stand on it, touch it — they can leave it alone,” she concluded with a laugh.
