What makes you feel normal.

The movie theater will do it.

The Middle East International Film Festival was held here in Abu Dhabi over this past week. Wrapping up today, I believe.

I splurged and bought tickets to four films although there were many more I wanted to see. Tickets were only 20 dirhams, which is about 5 dollars. Regal Cinemas, take note.

Funnily enough, the drama started before the film in 3 out of 4 cases, but in the end we always made it.

Film #1:
Earthwhispers Mother Earth–
Profiling 10 environmentalists living in New Zealand and their efforts to protect and embrace nature. This film was painful… in a good way. You can’t exactly compare the desert of Abu Dhabi to the lush green forests, mountains, and pastures of New Zealand. I’ve never missed my garden more. One of the subjects showed his composting efforts and soil transformation. Amazing. Then there was the guy (who closely resembled Santa) that felt the only excuse for not riding a bike or walking to your destinations was “well… maybe if someone didn’t have legs or something…” .

Film #2:
Wild Grass
A non-genre specific film following a man who finds a woman’s wallet and becomes obsessed with knowing her. I really liked this film… but I would never claim that I understood it. Especially the last scene… so you all need to go see it so we can discuss. Get on that.

Film #3:
On the Way to School
The story of a first-time teacher from Western Turkey who travels to tiny remote Kurdish village to be the only teacher at the village school. He only speaks Turkish… the students only speak Kurdish. All to relatable. There were times in the film that the main character spoke my mind. Something like, “It’s like I’m wasting my breath… I talk and they don’t understand.” Plus, the kids were adorable. Adorable.

Film #4:
Laugh Until it Hurts
This was a special program and my favorite of all the films. In a historic moment, this showing was the first time silent film accompanied by live piano music has ever been shown on the Arabian peninsula. Four silent films were threaded together and accompanied by Neil Brand on the piano. Brand is apparently one of the best silent film accompaniests… and I didn’t even realize that was something to aspire to. He did a fantastic job accompanying Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant, Buster Keaton’s One Week, Charley Chases’s Mighty Like a Moose, and Charles Bowers in Egged On. Completely hilarious and a unique way to spend the afternoon.

xo, jill