Region's top film stars confirmed for Abu Dhabi

Egyptian film and television star Yusra leads a list of top regional actors set to attend the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, organisers said on Wednesday.

Hollywood stars Uma Thurman and Adrien Brody have already been confirmed for the event, which runs from October 14 to 23.

Television actors Yehia el Fakharany, from Egypt, and Bassam Kousa from Syria will also attend. The festival will also welcome Lebleba, one of the Arab world’s best-loved popular entertainers, who started acting as a child and earned critical acclaim for her more serious roles in later years.

Mona Zaki and Ahmed Helmy lead a list of famous names from a new generation of Arab actors that also includes Ghada Adel, who starred in Mohamed Khan’s In the Heliopolis Flat (2007), and Fathy Abdel Wahab, best known for his role in “Sahar Al Layali” (2003) by Hani Khalifa and “Fawzia: A Special Blend” (2008) by Magdi Ahmed Ali.

The list goes on to include a host of other celebrated talents such as Rashid Assaf, Hicham Bahloul, Janine Dagher, Abdel Fahed, Tamer Hagras, Hassan Kachach, Somaya el Khasab, Younes Migri, Sana Mouziane, Mostafa Shaban, Shatha Taha Salim and Wael Ramadan.

Numerous celebrities from the Gulf countries are also expected at screenings and Gala Nights throughout the festival. Among them are Suad Abdullah, Abdulhussain Abdulredha, Abdulmohsen el Nemr, Huda Hussain, Ghanem al Sulaiti, Khaled al Braiki, Mohammed al Mansour and Abdul Aziz Jassim.

Once again, the celebrity guest list includes cast members of films being shown as part of the line-up. Julian Schnabel’s new film “Miral”, presented at a gala night as part of the narrative feature competition, will be attended by Alexander Siddig, the Sudanese-born actor known for his work on several international productions, and Yasmine al Massri, who starred in Nadine Labaki’s “Caramel” (2007) and Najwa Najjar’s “Pomegranates and Myrrh” (2009). Schnabel’s latest feature is a sweeping multigenerational saga of four Arab women living under Israeli occupation, which created a lot of buzz in Venice and Toronto.

Julia Kassar and Carmen Lebbos, who made a name for themselves in theatre and television before finding their place Lebanese cinema, will be in Abu Dhabi for the screening of “Here Comes the Rain”, directed by Bahij Hojeij. The much-anticipated film continues Hojeij’s exploration of the kidnappings that took place during the Lebanese civil war and tells the story of a man who returns to his family after 20 years of imprisonment, permanently scarred and detached from the reality of life.

Asser Yassin, Basma and Mohamed Lotfy star in the Egyptian film “Messages from the Sea” by Daoud Abdel Sayed in this year’s narrative feature competition and are coming to Abu Dhabi to support the project. “Messages from the Sea” is a charming meditation on existence, memory, love and social disintegration that charts the story of a man who returns to his childhood home in Alexandria following the death of his mother.

The narrative feature competition also includes “Taming”, by the Syrian director Nidal Aldibs, whose leading actors Salloum Haddad and Mohanad Kotesh will be at the film’s festival screening. It interweaves dreams, desire and despair in a captivating existential drama that begins with a young man and a beautiful girl embarking on an escapist romance.

Qays Cheikh Najib, one of Syria’s most prominent actors and fellow Syrian star Kinda Allouch will attend the screening of “Once Again” by Joud Said, which will be shown as part of a new horizons contest. Set against the backdrop of the Syrian military presence in Lebanon, it tells the story of the son of an army officer, who loses his memory after a gun accident. Another film with celebrity support is “Living Skin” by Egyptian director Fawzi Saleh, also in the same competition. The prominent Egyptian actor Mahmoud Hemada, who produced the film, will be coming to its Festival screening. Living Skin is a vibrant, ramshackle portrait of child labor in Egypt, showing a cross-section of children’s lives in the tanneries of a slum.

The festival also looks forward to welcoming two Tunisian stars of films in the short film competition. Anissa Daoud is a rising star of independent film, who does not shy away from radical roles, and is coming to the Festival to support the screening of “Album”, directed by Shiraz Fradi. Mouna Noureddine, one of Tunisia’s foremost theatre and film actresses, will attend the screening of “Wave” by Mohamed Ben Attia.
 

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.