Tea with Culture

Dubai International Film Festival 2017 took place between 6-13 December. In our first report, we share our overall impressions, highlights of the festival, favourite films and discuss things that could be improved. We are joined by Christopher Alario, a special collections librarian/archivist and cinephile who lives and works in the region and attended the festival with us. We discuss the following films in this episode: The Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow (dir. Fadi Baki) The Square (dir. Ruben Östlund) The Death of Stalin (dir. Armando Iannucci) The Disaster Artist (dir. James Franco) The Seen and Unseen (dir. Kamila Andini) I am Not a Witch (dir. Rungano Nyoni) You Were Never Really Here (dir. Lynne Ramsay) The Message (dir. Moustapha Akkad, 1977)

We are joined by Faisal Al Zaabi (https://twitter.com/cinestrong) to discuss the 31st edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato which took place between 24 June and 2 July 2017 in Bologna. A festival organised by the Cineteca di Bologna that is dedicated to the rediscovery of old, rare and little-known films with a particular focus on cinema origins and the silent movie period. We also discuss the lack of institutions in the Arab world to archive and restore films and the lack of seeing old Arab films on the big screen. https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/

Our top picks of exhibitions and museums to see between January and March 2017. This episode includes: Performances/Music: 1. Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark Cinema Concert at Dubai Opera 2. Shakespeare Under the Stars - Macbeth in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman 3. Performances at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Center www.nyuad-artscenter.org/en_US/events/ Exhibitions in Dubai: 4. Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme - And Yet My Mask is Powerful I at Art Jameel Project Space 5. Samia Halaby - Illuminated Space/Documentary Drawings of the Kafr Qasem Massacre at Ayyam Gallery 6. Joshua Watts - Emergent Momenta at FN Design 7. Vikram Divecha - Minor Work at IVDE 8. Lala Rukh - sagar at Grey Noise 9. Artist Run New York: The Seventies at Jean Paul Najjar 10. Fouad Elkhoury - Suite Egyptienne at The Thirdline 11. Image of Self at Total Arts in The Courtyard 12. Fari Bradley - STITCHES TO SAVE 9 WITH at The Mine 13. Abdolreza Aminlari - remnants, Aidan Salakhova’s - (In) Stability, Ammar Al Attar - The Medium is the Message at Cuadro 14. Adel El Siwi - The Face and Beyond at Artspace 15. Abbas Kiarostami - The Everlasting Roots at The Farjam Foundation Exhibitions in Abu Dhabi: 17. But We Cannot See Them: Tracing the UAE Art Community 1988-2008 at NYUAD Art Gallery 18. Bayn - The In-Between and Lest We Forget Emirati Adornment: Tangible & Intangible at Warehouse 421 19. Art of Nature by ADMAF in Umm Al Emarat Park Exhibitions in Sharjah: 20. Sadik Kwaish Alfraji - Once Upon A Time: Hadiqat Al Umma at Maraya 21. Design House 2017: Change, Coordinates + Someone Else at 1971 - Design Space 22. Sharjah Biennial 13 - Tamawuj

Film critic A.S. Harmah joins Hind Mezaina for a conversation about his book The Earth Dies Streaming. A.S. Hamrah is a writer living in Brooklyn. He contributed a column on film to n+1 from 2008 to 2019, and his essays and reviews have appeared in Harper’s, Bookforum, Cineaste, and other publications. His first book, The Earth Dies Streaming: Film Writing, 2002–2018, was published by n+1 Books in 2018. Episode Notes: The first half of the discussion is about the state of film criticism, the current the debate about streaming, their impact on movie theatres, and film studios as hyper capitalist entities. From the 42nd minute onwards the discussion is focused on the book, including the following chapters and filmmakers: - Alien Land - The Grapes of Wrath - Jessica Biel's Hand - Chantal Akerman - Stanley Kubrick Other films/filmmakers/topics mentioned / discussed in this episode include: Outbreak, Contagion, Nomadland (Chloe Zhao), Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard), The Irishman (Martin Scorsese), Il Cinema Ritrovato and the roles of film festivals in general (especially during the pandemic), Links discussed in this episode: 2021 Will Launch the Platinum Age of Piracy www.wired.com/preview/story/5fd2...56e34070c4339bc27c Oedipal Multiplex https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/oedipal-multiplex-1.602016 Links related to the book: Book intro, Remember Me On This Computer nplusonemag.com/online-only/onlin...on-this-computer/ n+1 Bookstore shop.nplusonemag.com/products/the-e...-by-a-s-hamrah Where to find A S Hamrah: thebaffler.com/authors/a-s-hamrah twitter.com/hamrahrama www.instagram.com/hamrahrama

This episode was recorded on 22nd March 2020, a few weeks into the significant changes felt all around the world caused by the Coronavirus. Tea with Culture's Hind Mezaina was invited by Warehouse 421, an arts and design centre based in Abu Dhabi that hosts exhibitions and public programmes, to moderate a discussion for their new podcast "Warehouse 421 Conversations". You can listen to the discussion here, and thank you to Warehouse 421 for letting us share this episode with you, our listeners. Since March 14th, museums and cultural spaces across the UAE closed their doors for health and safety reasons due to the Coronavirus. It’s been a tough few weeks for all since that announcement and Warehouse 421 invited Tea with Culture to moderate a discussion about the impact of the current interruptions in the local art ecosystem and the various ways that livelihood in the arts can continue during times of disruption. Hind Mezaina was joined by artist and educator Zahra Jewanjee, Umer Butt, director of Grey Noise Gallery, and Kevin Jones, arts writer and consultant and founder of Juniper Mind to have this conversation. https://www.warehouse421.ae/en/ http://www.zjewanjee.com https://www.greynoise.org http://junipermind.com