Amman International Film Festival: Empowering Arab cinema

AMMAN — Selma is a 17-year-old girl living in a secular and bourgeois family in Paris in 1993. When she meets Julien, a provocative young man, she realizes for the first time how the heavy rules of patriarchy affect her. اضافة اعلان

As she faces her own fears and explores the power and dangers of her desire, her family crumbles and the terror of fundamentalism begins to emerge in her country of origin. Selma must fight back to reclaim her body and become a free woman.

This is the story of Honey Cigar, one of the 51 films from 26 countries that are being shown at the Amman International Film Festival (AIFF). This year is the second edition of Jordan’s premier film festival, running between August 23 and 31. 

The festival was created to showcase Arab and international movies with a focus on Middle Eastern and North African filmmakers, and to remedy the problem of a country that has long been used as a popular filming location for Hollywood blockbusters, but has arguably lacked its own platform to empower the stories of local filmmakers.


(Photos: Handouts from AIFF) 

The festival will also be bringing back a panel of three international jurors to award Best Arab Feature, as well as Best Feature-length Documentary and Best Arab Short, Jordan News previously reported. There will additionally be a fourth category for International Features that will be judged and voted on by the festival’s audience. 

The film festival will screen at three locations for the films being shown at the festival, as well as industry days complete with workshops, panels, and master classes, all designed to help 13 budding Arab filmmakers complete their current projects. The drive-in theater will remain in place this year as well.
“It was very popular,” said AIFF Director Nada Doumani.

“I think people were sometimes coming just because of the experience of the drive-in. But, for me, a festival is mainly about theaters and so this year we’re going have also TAJ Cinema and we’re going to have the open-air theater at the Royal Film Commission, which we used already last year. So the same movie will be showcased twice: once in the normal theater, and once either (at the) open-air or at the drive-in.”

These were carefully selected out of 45 applications, proving the success of last year’s inaugural festival.


(Photos: Handouts from AIFF) 

The Amman International Film Festival will see all 51 films premiering in Jordan of which 4 are world premieres, and 8 are Arab premieres. Along with mandatory spaced seating, proper sanitation stations will be available, and temperatures will be taken at the entrance of the theaters.

“I think we have ambitions, and rightly so, to be a festival with an edge, with a niche of its own. We’re focusing on (first-time filmmakers), but not only,” HRH Princess Rym Ali, who serves as president of the AIFF, previously told Jordan News. “And I hope that in five years, not even five, even this year it will be professional, useful, seamless, and entertaining.”

With a focus on Arab voices and a large proportion of female directors, the Amman International Film Festival is cutting edge in many ways. In a region with a rich creative industry but not necessarily with a large framework to explore this, the Amman International Film festival has created a much needed platform to boost local filmmakers’ opportunities. 

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