Emirati film premieres at Locarno this week

An Emirati film makes its world premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival this month.

"Sabeel", directed by Khalid Mahmood, is in competition for the  Pardi Di Domani (Leopards of Tomorrow) section with several European and international films at the event, festival authorities said. The film won second place for best Emirati script at this year’s Gulf Film Festival and will first be screened in Locarno on August 12. 

Largely shot in Ras Al Khaimah, in the mountainous areas of Khat and Tuwaiyeen, it features Razeega Al Tarish, Hasan Al Marzouqi and Hussian Mahmood.

The 20-minute film tells of two young boys who live with their grandmother. They spend their mornings tending to their vegetables, which they must sell off a highway to passing travellers. Any money they make must be used to buy medicine for their sick grandmother. The film explores their lives and environment, and how the road that provides them a living will determine their fate.

The festival has a reputation for arthouse films and will screen an explicit gay alien zombie movie that was sidelined by Australian censors last month. New artistic director Olivier Pere and his team have kept up the annual southern Swiss festival's tradition of showcasing upcoming talent and introducing new movies from around the world, including Asia, to European audiences, reports AFP.

The 18 films in the keynote international competition feature French director Christophe Honore's "Homme au Bain" (Man at Bath) with Chiara Mastroianni, as well as a world premiere for Chinese director Li Hongqi's "Han Jia" (Winter Vacation).

Xu Xin's 356 minute-long documentary "Karamay", about a fire at a Chinese theatre in 2006 that killed more than 300, is also competing, hailed by Pere as "monumental not only in terms of its length, but above all in its emotional and political impact".

But this year's jury for the "Pardo d'Oro" (Golden Leopard) award, led by Singaporean film maker Eric Khoo, also has to grapple with more controversial fare in the form of Canadian director Bruce LaBruce's "LA Zombie". Produced by German adult movie company Wurstfilm, it stars French porn actor Francois Sagat – who also leads in "Homme au Bain" – as a man convinced he is an alien zombie sent to Earth to roam the streets of Los Angeles in search of dead bodies and sex. The film prompted problems with Australia's film board that stopped it being screened at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival, despite claims by festival director Richard Moore that it was a "video art zombie film".

Mastroianni, 38, daughter of legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve and the late Italian hearthrob Marcello Mastroianni, will also pick up an Excellence Award at Locarno, joining a long line of international stars such as Willem Defoe, John Malkovich and Susan Sarandon.

China's Jia Zhang-ke, dubbed "one of the major revelations of the last two decades and one of the greatest filmmakers working today" by the festival organisers, is also due to pick up an honorary "Pardo d'Onore" for his career.

Locarno, one of Europe's oldest film festivals alongside Cannes and Venice, also features showcase starlight screenings for up to 8,000 in the southern lakeside town's renaissance square, close to the Italian border. (With inputs from AFP)