Two Arab films to premiere at International Critics’ Week in Cannes 

Egyptian director Omar El-Zohairy’s film “Feathers” tells the story of a mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. (semainedelacritique.com)
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Updated 09 June 2021
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Two Arab films to premiere at International Critics’ Week in Cannes 

DUBAI: Two Arab films have been selected to premiere at International Critics’ Week, set to take place alongside the Cannes Film Festival in July.

Egyptian director Omar El-Zohairy’s film “Feathers” tells the story of a mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. 

When a magic trick goes wrong at her four-year-old son’s birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. 

The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while trying to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough transformation.




When a magic trick goes wrong at her four-year-old son’s birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. (semainedelacritique.com)

Zohairy’s first short film, “Breathe Out (Zafir),” premiered at the 8th Dubai International Film Festival and won the Muhr Special Jury Prize for Short Films. 

His second short film, “The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometre 375,” was the first Egyptian film to be selected for the Cinéfondation competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the film went on to win several awards around the world.

The second film selected to compete at the event, which will run from July 7-15, is Tunisian-French filmmaker Leyla Bouzid’s “Une histoire d’amour et de désir” (“A Tale of Love and Desire”).




The second film selected to compete at the event is Tunisian-French filmmaker Leyla Bouzid’s “Une histoire d’amour et de désir.” (semainedelacritique.com)

The film’s story revolves around Ahmed, an 18-year-old, who is French but of Algerian origin and grew up in the suburbs of Paris. 

At university, he meets Farah, a young joyful Tunisian girl, who has just arrived in Paris. While discovering a collection of sensual and erotic Arab literature he never could have imagined existed, Ahmed falls in love with Farah.

This film is Bouzid's second feature film. In 2015, she premiered her first feature movie “As I Open My Eyes,” which was awarded at the Venice Film Festival before being screening at festivals around the world.  


Iraq’s first filmmaker in Cannes says sanctions no piece of cake

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Iraq’s first filmmaker in Cannes says sanctions no piece of cake

CANNES: Hasan Hadi, the first filmmaker from Iraq to be selected for the prestigious Cannes Festival, said economic embargoes like those imposed in his childhood under Saddam Hussein did not work.
“Sanctions empower dictators,” he told AFP, as they concentrate scant resources in their hands and only make them “more brutal.”
“In the history of the world, there was no one time when they (imposed) sanctions and the president couldn’t eat.”
Hadi’s first feature film, “The President’s Cake,” has received very good reviews since premiering Friday in the Directors’ Fortnight section.
Cinema publication Deadline said it was “head and shoulders above” some of the films in the running for the festival’s Palme d’Or top prize, and “could turn out to be Iraq’s first nominee for an Oscar.”
The film follows nine-year-old Lamia after she has the misfortune of being picked by her school teacher to bake the class a cake for the president’s birthday, or be denounced for disloyalty.
It is the early 1990s, the country is under crippling UN sanctions. She and her grandmother — with whom she shares a reed home in Iraq’s southern marshlands — can barely afford to eat.
As they set off into town to hunt down unaffordable ingredients, with Lamia’s pet cockerel and their last meagre belongings to sell, the film plunges into the social reality — and everyday petty corruption — of 1990s Iraq.
The near-total trade and financial embargo imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait “demolished the moral fabric of society,” Hadi said.
It sent the country “hundreds of years back.”


The filmmaker said he did not taste cake until he was in his early teens, after the US-led invasion in 2003 toppled Saddam and sanctions were lifted.
Instead, with processed sugar and eggs out of reach, there was “date cake” — whose main ingredient was squished dates, sometimes with a candle on top.
“As a kid you’re sad that you’re not getting your cake,” he said. But as you grow up, you realize what your parents must have gone through to put food on the table.
“Not only my family, but all of these people had to sell literally everything,” he said. “There were people that were even selling their door frames.”
Hadi and his team shot the film entirely in Iraq.
It beautifully captures the ancient wetlands in the south of the country, listed as a World Heritage Site since 2016 and reputedly the home of the biblical Garden of Eden.
Saddam drained them in the 1990s, trying to flush out rebels hiding in the reeds.
But after the US-led invasion, authorities opened up the valves and the wetlands flourished again — even if they are now threatened by climate change.
Hadi said he chose the location partly to make the point that “the marshes stayed and Saddam went away.”


To re-create the Iraq of his youth, Hadi and his crew paid close attention to detail, amassing vintage clothes and bringing a barber on set to trim the hair and moustaches of everyone down to the extras.
They scouted out the best locations, shooting one scene in a small eatery reputed to have been frequented by Saddam himself.
They chose non-actors to play ordinary Iraqis under the ever-present eyes of the president in posters, pictures frames and murals.
Hadi said hearing US President Donald Trump say recently that he planned to lift sanctions on Syria after Islamists toppled president Bashar Assad last year was “amazing.”
“I don’t think the sanctions helped in any way to get rid of Bashar, but definitely empowered him to kill more people, and torture more people,” he said.

Man badly hurt by falling palm tree at Cannes film festival

Updated 17 May 2025
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Man badly hurt by falling palm tree at Cannes film festival

  • The Asian man, believed to have been attending the festival, was badly injured
  • A sudden gust of wind brought the tree down

CANNES: A man was seriously hurt after a palm tree fell onto him at the Cannes film festival on Saturday.

The Asian man, believed to have been attending the festival, was badly injured, firemen who treated him at the scene said.

A sudden gust of wind brought the tree down near the Palais des Festivals on the Croisette esplanade overlooking the Mediterranean, an AFP journalist at the scene said.


The accident happened as the American movie “Eddington,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Pedro Pascal was being shown.

The Croisette was crowded with festivalgoers when the tree fell, witnesses said.

“There was a terrible gust of wind and I heard a cry,” said Marthy Fink from Luxembourg.


Amal Clooney stuns in black at Cannes Film Festival

Updated 17 May 2025
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Amal Clooney stuns in black at Cannes Film Festival

DUBAI: Lebanese British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney made a head-turning appearance at the 78th Cannes Film Festival this week, wearing a black gown by British designer John Galliano.

Clooney attended the premiere of “Bono: Stories of Surrender” in a sleek, off-the-shoulder dress featuring a fitted bodice with subtle draping and a floor-length skirt with a gentle train. She completed the look with a black clutch and Cartier statement earrings, styling her hair in soft, voluminous waves.

On the red carpet, Clooney was joined by U2 guitarist the Edge and frontman Bono, the subject of “Bono: Stories of Surrender.”

Amal Clooney made a head-turning appearance at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. (Getty Images)

The black-and-white film, directed by Andrew Dominik, adapts Bono’s 2022 memoir “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story” and his one-man stage show of the same name.

Set to some of U2’s most iconic tracks, Bono opens up about the tragedy that marked his childhood, with his mother Iris collapsing and dying at her own father’s funeral when the singer was 14.

His father, Brendan “Bob” Hewson, already a man of few words, retreated into shock, anger and depression.

Clooney was joined by U2 guitarist the Edge (L) and frontman Bono (R) on the red carpet. (Getty Images)

The film is also a love letter to the singer’s wife, Ali Hewson, who he met when they were both 15, the same fateful day U2 was formed in a Dublin school. The film streams on Apple TV+ from May 30.

Bono, who has spent decades fighting for more aid to Africa and to lift the debt burden from poor countries, told the audience at the premiere that the world is again being threatened by fascism as it was when the festival was set up in 1939.

“Mussolini and the little man with a moustache, and his mate Goebbels had taken over the Venice Film Festival, so this festival was set up to fight fascism,” the singer said.

“It took it until 1946 (for the festival to get going) but it stands for that freedom now.”

He said that Hollywood star Sean Penn — a vocal advocate for Ukraine — had “brought us some friends from the actual trenches, from the front line in Ukraine, and they’re here tonight.

“I just want to thank you because you’re keeping us free,” Bono added to loud cheers.


Guerlain names Mohammed Hindash first Middle East makeup ambassador

Updated 17 May 2025
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Guerlain names Mohammed Hindash first Middle East makeup ambassador

DUBAI: French beauty house Guerlain this week appointed Dubai-based celebrity makeup artist and entrepreneur Mohammed Hindash as its first-ever regional makeup ambassador for the Middle East.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by hindash (@hindash)

Hindash, founder of the makeup brand Hindash Cosmetics, has worked with a roster of international and regional celebrities. His clientele includes Naomi Campbell, Lindsay Lohan, Chanel Iman, Natalia Vodianova, Rahma Riadh, Yusra Mardini, Nancy Ajram, Mona Zaki, Dana Hourani and Mona Kattan. He also did Queen Rania of Jordan’s makeup for the royal wedding of Crown Prince Hussein and Princess Rajwa in 2023.

He took to Instagram to write: “My chapter with @guerlain represents more than just beauty, it embodies timeless innovation rooted in heritage.

“I’m beyond thrilled to be announced as their first makeup ambassador in the Middle East as I showcase Guerlain through my lens and artistry,” he added. “I have immersed myself in the rich history of the Maison, and I can’t wait to narrate the story on my models’ faces.”


Musician charged with Chris Brown in alleged London nightclub assault

Updated 17 May 2025
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Musician charged with Chris Brown in alleged London nightclub assault

LONDON: A fellow musician and friend of Chris Brown has been charged alongside the Grammy-winning singer on allegations they beat and seriously injured a music producer at a London nightclub in 2023, police said Saturday.
Omolulu Akinlolu, 38, who performs under the name “Hoody Baby,” was due to appear in Manchester Magistrates’ Court on a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Brown, 36, was jailed without bail on the same charge Friday, throwing his upcoming tour into question. He is scheduled to appear at Southwark Crown Court in London on June 13, which is the third day of his world tour.
Akinlolu is a rapper from Dallas, Texas, who has collaborated with Brown and Lil Wayne. He also goes by the names “Fat Leopard” and “Super Hood.”
Police gave no details on what role Akinlolu played in the alleged assault but said he was charged in connection with the same incident as Brown.
Brown was on tour in the UK in February 2023 when he launched an unprovoked attack on producer Abe Diaw, striking him several times with a bottle at the Tape nightclub in the swanky Mayfair neighborhood in London, prosecutor Hannah Nicholls said in court Friday.
Brown then chased Diaw and punched and kicked him in an attack caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people, she said.
Brown did not enter a plea and only spoke to confirm his name, birth date and gave his address as the Lowry Hotel, where he was arrested in Manchester early Thursday and taken into custody.
Brown’s representative has not responded to multiple requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Brown, often called by his nickname Breezy, burst onto the music scene as a teen in 2005 and has become a major hitmaker over the years with notable songs such as “Run It,” “Kiss Kiss” and “Without You.”
He won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E.” and then earned his second gold trophy in the same category for “11:11 (Deluxe)” earlier this year.
He is scheduled to launch an international tour next month with artists Jhene Aiko, Summer Walker and Bryson Tiller, opening with a European leg on June 8 in Amsterdam before starting North America shows in July.