A photo from Kashta, directed by A J Al Thani.
Today’s programme for the fifth Ajyal Youth Film Festival, presented by the Doha Film Institute, offers a mixture of family fare, animated features and inspiring documentaries, as well as a special programme for differently-abled cinemagoers.
In partnership with the Translation and Interpreting Institute of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Nora Al Subai’s Al Johara and A J Al Thani’s Kashta will be made accessible to visually impaired, deaf, hard-of-hearing and viewers with difficulty understanding speech, through audio descriptions of visual elements and enriched subtitles in both Arabic and English that include information about sound effects and music, as well as sign-language interpretation. Programme screens at 5pm.
Other films to be screened today include At Eye Level directed by Joachim Dollhopf and Evi Goldbrunner, Elia Youssef’s The Seventh Summit, Benjamin Renner and Patrick Imbert’s The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, and Shirin Neshat’s Looking for Oum Kulthum, in addition to international short films such as Another Reality and China’s Cultural Revolution.
Those who have not yet seen The Breadwinner, which served as the festival’s opening film, still have the chance to watch the animated film tonight at 8.30pm.
There is a wide range of family activities available as part of the Ajyal 2017 Family Weekend, open from 3pm to 8pm on Katara Esplanade. Also from 10am to 10pm, take part in Geekdom, a pop culture feast of comics, cosplay, movies, TV series and video games and LeBlockade, a multimedia celebration of Qatar’s cultural resilience at Katara Buildings 18 and 19.
Head to Katara Drama Theatre at 6pm for the third of the Ajyal Talks to hear Sky Neal, documentary filmmaker, Elhum Shakerifar, producer and filmmaker, Dr Mohammad Y Mattar, professor of Law at Qatar University and Jenna Dawson-Faber, UN representative, as they explore the wider context of the stories of the children featured in Kate McLarnon and Sky Neal’s Even When I Fall, which was shown at the festival yesterday. A further example of Ajyal using the power of cinema to highlight global issues, ‘Against Child Trafficking’ will also permit audiences to hear first-hand from two of the child survivors who appeared in the film.
