Big Screen Romance: Cinema Akil’s Butheina Kazim Writes A Love Letter To The Enduring Allure of The Arthouse
“The pandemic has been plagued by an obsessive voraciousness for all things security; in our quest for food and cyber security, what becomes of the security of magic? Of poetry? The importance remains, and to appropriate author Joan Didion: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.’”
It’s been a tumultuous year for cinema, with Covid-induced lockdowns forcing us away from the big screen in the direction of streaming services to get our film fixes. Butheina Kazim, co-creator of Dubai independent picture house Cinema Akil believes there’s nothing that can replace the joy of a visit to the theatre. Here, she returns to her last arthouse experience before the pandemic hit, and realises a world, and industry, that’s had to move with the new normal…
It was 8.22am in February 2020, and I was in Berlin for the International Film Festival. I pushed through the infamously overzealous Berlinale crowds, having already lined up for an hour outside the Friedrichstadt-Palast theatre. Darting up four flights of stairs, still taking in the splendour of the stained-glass panels and the hovering chandeliers, I flashed my badge at the usher at the last of the countless checkpoints, and waited. Then came the nod. I was in. The relief at scoring a decent seat in a venue that holds a huge 1,895 people stays with me still. I was one of the first people in the world to see Matteo Garrone’s latest feature: Pinocchio, which had held its world premiere the previous night. I excitedly shuffled in my seat, smiled politely at the couple next to me as our winter clothes piled up around our feet, touching each other with an unspoken, but absolute, permission that’s since been lost. A few moments later, darkness descended, and after the obligatory orchestra of coughs (that had never even heard of Covid), the opening credits smiled.
Pinocchio is a full-blown Garrone. Its magical images sticky and its eeriness sprinkled with kisses of cute, all while the Dario Marianelli score tames its irregular characters. As I returned to Dubai, and considered the film’s potential release at Cinema Akil, Februray turned to March, and the world became a very different place.
Looking back, the film, and all its peculiarity, was a foreshadowing of a world to come. The cinemas shut, the fears surged and lives were lost, and then as they reopened, considerations for the fears coped, and the lives bargained entered our thoughts. Today, theatres across Europe are shutting down again, while in India cinemas reopen despite a surge in cases. Video on demand (VOD) is gobbling up all in sight and growing more relevant by the day. Nearby, El Gouna Film Festival lives on with its red carpets, gala dinners and the trappings of a distant time. Elsewhere, theatrical releases are being pushed back, festivals postponed, it’s virtual everything and there’s subsequent Zoom fatigue.
The pandemic has been plagued by an obsessive voraciousness for all things security; in our quest for food and cyber security, what becomes of the security of magic? Of poetry? The importance remains, and to appropriate author Joan Didion: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
And arthouses have also always ‘lived’, they’re fighters and survivors. Engaged in that warfare against complacency of the mind and its stagnations. Fortresses of fantasy and brutal realities alike, community spaces in the truest sense: placing their bets on stories that celebrate our humanity and collective existence. And this is not cinema’s first pandemic survived, nor is it news that VOD enjoys unchallenged chomping rights at the theatrical pie. This ‘death of cinemas’ prophecy has been with us a while now: hiding and haunting. Yet somehow, despite it all, we find ourselves coming back. Cinemas and film festivals might look different right now, but come back we will.
In October 2020, after a long holdback, we opened Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio at Cinema Akil – the only picture house showing the film in its original Italian language. I took my usual seat at the very back of the cinema, locked eyes with actor Roberto Benigni towering over the handful of spectators that had come to watch the film. But this time, it was not Benigni I had come to see, and he wasn’t what the audience had come to see either. I’d watched as the small crowd had stood in line outside, apart but together, I looked on as they now sat: socially distanced but connected. They watched collectively, in a strange solidarity as the darkness descended, declaring them the brave. The opening credits smiled, and they all smiled back with flickering lights on their faces. And there, aligned with the peculiarities of 2020, a wooden puppet told me a secret: “We watch stories together; so we can truly see.”
Butheina shares the films that have changed the face of 21st-century Arab cinema here…
Theeb by Naji Abu Nawar
For reclaiming that window to parts relegated to the novels of Orientalist writers, in a tale of brotherly love.
Caramel by Nadine Labaki
For inviting that genre of sexy Arab cinema that is at once accessible and rich like caramel.
As I Open My Eyes by Leyla Bouzid
For its rethinking the utility of music and the eternal seductiveness of youth.
A Present from the Past by Kawthar Younis
For illustrating to the Arab film universe that a documentary drenched in emotion and power can be simple and budget-compliant.
Divine Intervention (Yadon Ilaheyya) by Elia Suleiman
For defining how a master of cinema stays on top of his game and in full focus between one century and the next.
For more information on Cinema Akil, visit: cinemaakil.com
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s November 2020 Issue