Tale of Three Jewels
Michel Kheleifi / Palestine
Thursday 6th May
6.30 p.m. - ALIF Riad
Tale of Three Jewels @ ALIF Riad
Twelve-year old Yusef (Mohammad Nahlal) has a problem that’s common to adolescent boys: he’s in love with an older girl. The object of his affection is Aida (Hana Ne’meh), the daughter of a Gypsy family, and while she likes him too, she’s not above playing games and seeing how far she can manipulate him. When she mentions that the one who will marry her must find the lost three jewels on her grandmother’s necklace, Yusef is determined to travel to South America to look for them. His chosen method of transportation is, to say the least, unusual.
The Sting
George Roy Hill / America
Saturday 8th May
6.30 p.m. - ALIF Riad
When a mutual friend is killed by a mob boss, two con men, one experienced, and one young, try to get even by pulling off the big con on the mob boss. The story unfolds with several twists and last minute alterations.
The Color of Olives
Carolina Rivas/ Mexico
Thursday 13th May
6.30 p.m. – ALIF Riad
From Mexican director Carolina Rivas and cinematographer Daoud Sarhandi, comes this elegant and visually breathtaking new film about the Palestinian experience. The Amer family lives surrounded by the infamous West Bank Wall, where their daily lives are dominated by electrified fences, locked gates and a constant swarm of armed soldiers. This unique and intimate documentary shares their private world, allowing a glimpse of the constant struggles and the small, endearing details that sustain them. The Color of Olives is an artistic and beautifully affecting reflection on the effects of racial segregation, the meaning of borders and the absurdity of war.
Chinatown
Roman Polanski / France/ Poland
Saturday 15th May
6.30 p.m. – ALIF Riad
Chinatown is a 1974 American neo-noir film, directed by Roman Polanski. The film features many elements of the film noir genre, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama. It stars Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston, and was released by Paramount Pictures.
The story, set in Los Angeles in 1937, was inspired by the historical disputes over land and water rights that had raged in southern California during the 1910s and 20s, in which William Mulholland acted on behalf of Los Angeles interests to secure water rights in the Owens Valley.
Babel
Alejandro González Iñárritu/Mexico
Thursday 20th May
6.30 p.m. - ALIF Riad
Four interlocking stories all connected by a single gun all converge at the end and reveal a complex and tragic story of the lives of humanity around the world and how we truly aren’t all that different. In Morocco, a troubled married couple are on vacation trying to work out their differences. Meanwhile, a Moroccan herder buys a rifle for his sons so they can keep the jackals away from his herd. A girl in Japan dealing with rejection, the death of her mother, the emotional distance of her father, her own self-consciousness, and a disability among many other issues, deals with modern life in the enormous metropolis of Tokyo, Japan. Then, on the opposite side of the world the married couple’s Mexican nanny takes the couple’s 2 children with her to her son’s wedding in Mexico, only to come into trouble on the return trip. Combined, it provides a powerful story and an equally powerful looking glass into the lives of seemingly random people around the world and it shows just how connected we really are.
Paradise Now
Hany Abu-Assad / Palestine
Saturday 22nd May
6.30 p.m. - ALIF Riad
The story places two close friends, Palestinians Said and Khaled, recruited by an extremist group to perpetrate a terrorist attack in Tel-Aviv, by blowing themselves. However, things go wrong and both friends must separate in the border. One of them, maintaining his purpose of carrying out the attack to the end, while the other will have his doubts about it.
In Bruges
Martin McDonagh / UK
Thursday 27th May
6.30 p.m. – ALIF Riad
The considerable pleasures of In Bruges begin with its title, which suggests a glumly self-important art film but actually fits a rattling-good tale of two Irish gangsters “keepin’ a low profile” after a murder gone messily wrong. Bruges, the best-preserved medieval town in Belgium, is where the bearlike veteran Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and newbie triggerman Ray (Colin Farrell) have been ordered by their London boss to hole up for two weeks. As the sly narrative unfolds like a paper flower in water, “in Bruges” also becomes a state of mind, a suspended moment amid centuries-old towers and bridges and canals when even thuggish lives might experience a change in direction.
