A 6-year-old Syrian boy called Ahmad is the focus of Soudade Kaadan’s debut feature film, Obscure. The film will have its UK premiere at the Shubbak (which means window in Arabic) Festival in London, which starts on Saturday.
He lives in a Lebanese refugee camp and is so traumatised by his exile and sense of loss that he can barely speak. It takes hours of coaxing by his mother to wake him up each morning, and throughout the film he denies any knowledge of where he is from.
"Do I want to make a film about a kid who doesn’t speak at all?" – Kaadan says she asked herself this question during the early days of filming.
The filmmaker was born in France, but moved to Damascus at the age of 8, and lived there until she was driven out by the war in 2012. She felt unable to be creative for years when she began her film project, desperate to express her feelings about the destruction of Syria but feeling incapable of doing so.
"The situation was so cruel, I couldn’t make films any more," she says. "I didn’t want to make a piece of news [reporting] or political analysis. There’s so much information about Syria out there and no one cares."
Meeting Ahmad and seeing the "look in his eyes that you couldn’t forget" made her realise that this silence could be at the heart of her film.
Rather than trying to find a coherent shape to give her impressions of the conflict, she could admit the impossibility of doing so.
"I wanted to pass an emotional experience to the spectator – for the spectator to have more questions at the end of the film than answers," she says. "What can we do and how can we help these kids?"
Ahmad is not the only person in the documentary. There is also a more talkative Syrian girl, Batul, and a journalist who watches on a laptop images from the massacre in which his father died.
"He was talking about being numb," says Kaadan. "He says: ‘I don’t know, maybe I’m used to it – I don’t feel anything’."
As the film’s title suggests, it was the theme of obscurity that originally inspired Kaadan’s project. But as she researched, shot and edited the film over a five-year period, she realised that the work is "actually about trauma. We weren’t familiar with this concept in Syria before the war. Now, most of my generation has been through trauma".
She experimented with communicating this trauma through cinematic language, creating fragments of scenes, introducing repetition and posing questions without answers.
Sometimes the audio or visual track will fade out, replaced by field recordings, as though memories are penetrating the experience of reality.
Obscure has already been screened in Denmark and Switzerland. As it continues its tour of film festivals, Kaadan is already hard at work on her next project, a fictional drama called Daraa Is My Shadow, which she hopes to release next year. It is about a woman looking for gas for fuel during a cold Syrian winter, and realising that the people around her have lost their shadows. It is, then, another exploration of the experience of Syrians from an oblique angle – of a trauma, she says, that is not individual but collective.
"You see a whole generation change with one experience. It will never be the same," she says. "When the war finishes and we come back, how will we survive after this shock?"
That is not to say that healing is impossible. In Obscure, we see glimmers of that process as a social worker painstakingly coaxes Ahmad into playing with a xylophone.
Kaadan says it is possible to notice a change in Ahmad "from the beginning, where he’s absent, to the end, where he’s saying: ‘I want to stay here’. You can see it in the eyes".
• Obscure will screen on July 9 as part of Shubbak Festival, London’s largest biennial festival of contemporary Arab culture, which runs from Saturday until July 16
artslife@thenational.ae
Company%20Profile
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From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
Business Insights
- As per the document, there are six filing options, including choosing to report on a realisation basis and transitional rules for pre-tax period gains or losses.
- SMEs with revenue below Dh3 million per annum can opt for transitional relief until 2026, treating them as having no taxable income.
- Larger entities have specific provisions for asset and liability movements, business restructuring, and handling foreign permanent establishments.
Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shantanu Maheshwari, Jimmy Shergill, Saiee Manjrekar
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Rating: 2.5/5
Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
Fringe@Four Line-up
October 1 - Phil Nichol (stand-up comedy)
October 29 - Mandy Knight (stand-up comedy)
November 5 - Sinatra Raw (Fringe theatre)
November 8 - Imah Dumagay & Sundeep Fernandes (stand-up comedy)
November 13 - Gordon Southern (stand-up comedy)
November 22 - In Loyal Company (Fringe theatre)
November 29 - Peter Searles (comedy / theatre)
December 5 - Sinatra’s Christmas Under The Stars (music / dinner show)
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
WHAT%20MACRO%20FACTORS%20ARE%20IMPACTING%20META%20TECH%20MARKETS%3F
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The specs
A4 35 TFSI
Engine: 2.0-litre, four-cylinder
Transmission: seven-speed S-tronic automatic
Power: 150bhp
Torque: 270Nm
Price: Dh150,000 (estimate)
On sale: First Q 2020
A4 S4 TDI
Engine: 3.0-litre V6 turbo diesel
Transmission: eight-speed PDK automatic
Power: 350bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh165,000 (estimate)
On sale: First Q 2020
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
Rocketman
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Starring: Taron Egerton, Richard Madden, Jamie Bell
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Company%20Profile
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Company%20profile%20
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Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
SPECS
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Bio
Age: 25
Town: Al Diqdaqah – Ras Al Khaimah
Education: Bachelors degree in mechanical engineering
Favourite colour: White
Favourite place in the UAE: Downtown Dubai
Favourite book: A Life in Administration by Ghazi Al Gosaibi.
First owned baking book: How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson.
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Five expert hiking tips
Always check the weather forecast before setting off
Make sure you have plenty of water
Set off early to avoid sudden weather changes in the afternoon
Wear appropriate clothing and footwear
Take your litter home with you
The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
The biog
Favourite books: 'Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life' by Jane D. Mathews and ‘The Moment of Lift’ by Melinda Gates
Favourite travel destination: Greece, a blend of ancient history and captivating nature. It always has given me a sense of joy, endless possibilities, positive energy and wonderful people that make you feel at home.
Favourite pastime: travelling and experiencing different cultures across the globe.
Favourite quote: “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders” - Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.
Favourite Movie: Mona Lisa Smile
Favourite Author: Kahlil Gibran
Favourite Artist: Meryl Streep
A cryptocurrency primer for beginners
Cryptocurrency Investing for Dummies – by Kiana Danial
There are several primers for investing in cryptocurrencies available online, including e-books written by people whose credentials fall apart on the second page of your preferred search engine.
Ms Danial is a finance coach and former currency analyst who writes for Nasdaq. Her broad-strokes primer (2019) breaks down investing in cryptocurrency into baby steps, while explaining the terms and technologies involved.
Although cryptocurrencies are a fast evolving world, this book offers a good insight into the game as well as providing some basic tips, strategies and warning signs.
Begin your cryptocurrency journey here.
Available at Magrudy’s , Dh104
