A movie that sparked controversy when it opened on general release in France this week will headline the Doha Tribeca Film Festival next month, the organizers said on Sunday.
French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb’s action-thriller "Outside the Law," about a 1945 massacre of mostly unarmed Algerian civilians by French soldiers, will open the festival which starts on Oct. 26.
The Doha-based US-inspired event is a cultural partnership between the Doha Film Institute and Tribeca Enterprises.
New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, founded by US actor Robert De Niro to reinvigorate cultural life in Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, helped to organize the first Doha festival last year.
"‘Outside The Law’, the film that disturbs," was Le Parisien newspaper’s front-page headline on Wednesday as Bouchareb’s controversial movie hit French screens.
It opens with the massacre in the town of Setif, and focuses on three Algerian brothers who survive and then live in France where they join Algeria’s armed independence movement.
When the film was first shown in France at Cannes in May, riot police were deployed outside the festival hall to hold back demonstrators.
And at a pre-release screening in Marseille on Monday, far-right National Front members and former French residents of colonial Algeria brandished banners denouncing "French financing for an anti-French film."
Ten productions have also been selected to take part in the Doha festival’s Arab film competition, among them four world premieres, the organizers said on Sunday.
"We are nurturing the new generation of filmmakers, supporting regional and international film financing, and supporting the new wave in Arab film making," festival director Amanda Palmer said.
A number of foreign films will also be screened, including "Miral" by Julian Schnabel about an orphan from Jerusalem and "The Conspirator" by Robert Redford about the assassination of US president Abraham Lincoln.
Leading the Arab line-up is Egyptian director Ibrahim El Batout’s “Hawi.” The film, which will have its world premiere at the fest, is a portrait of modern Alexandria. Themes of human loss and displacement take center stage in place of a clearly defined story arc.
Other Arabic highlights include Lebanese/Swedish director Josef Fares’s “Balls,” a comedy about a lonely widower slowly making his way back onto the dating scene, with amusing, endearing results; Daoud Aoulad-Syad’s “The Mosque,” a sequel to his 2007 hit “Waiting for Paosolini”; and Hassan Ali Mahmood’s “The Quarter of Scarecrows,” a powerful Iraqi allegory about tyranny.
Leading the World Panorama section is Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy,” winner of this year’s Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Fest; Matt Reeves’ “Let Me In,” a Hollywood remake of the 2008 Swedish vampire blockbuster “Let the Right One In”; Kelly Reichardt’s recent Venice hit “Meek’s Cutoff,” a western starring Michelle Williams; Peter Mullan’s “Neds,” a coming-of-age Scottish tale which won San Sebastian film festival’s Golden Shell award this week.
Other highlights include Xavier Beauvois’ Algeria-set “Of Gods and Men,” winner of this year’s Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Fest; Stephen Frears’ acclaimed comic-book adaptation “Tamara Drew” starring Gemma Arterton; François Ozon’s comedy “Potiche” starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu; and Jasmila Zbanic’s Berlin smash “On the Path” starring Zrinka Cvitesic.
Cash prizes totaling $410,000 are on offer in the five-day festival hosted by the gas-rich Gulf emirate of Qatar, Palmer said.
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A scene from "El-Hawi"
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