Ajyal Film Festival 2024

Ode to Our Land - DFI Inclusive Cinema Screening

Special Screening - Ajyal Film Festival 2024

Rawda Al-Thani, Amal Al-Muftah / Qatar / 2023 / 81 min / Colour / Unknown / In Arabic, English / Arabic, English subtitles
Themes: Documentary
Rated: Parental guidance is advised. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

Description

DFI Inclusive Cinema Screening
‘Ode to Our Land’
by Amal Al Muftah and Rawda Al-Thani

The Ajyal Film Festival is honoured to welcome audiences of all abilities to an inclusive screening of ‘Ode to Our Land’, a DFI production for the National Museum of Qatar.

Directed by two promising Qatari talents, Amal Al Muftah and Rawda Al-Thani, the feature documentary celebrates the vision of His Highness, the Father Amir, in establishing a modern nation dedicated to the prosperity of all its people.

In collaboration with the Translation and Interpreting Studies Department of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University—the screening will be accompanied by an Arabic audio description, Arabic sign-language interpretation, and enriched subtitles in both Arabic and English.

By creating a film experience that caters to the unique needs of diverse audiences, Doha Film Institute hopes to transform cinema into a universally accessible art form that everyone can enjoy.

There will also be an insightful Q&A session with the filmmakers following the showing.

Ode to Our Land
A Doha Film Institute Supported Film

His Highness the Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was once a young man who lived in a city that would one day become a great metropolis and global centre. On the path to becoming a leader, his vision was formed by many things—memory, dreams and aspirations—all coalescing to make the backbone of a lucid and intelligent development of a nation. Charting the path from childhood to the ascension to power and through interviews, recollections and the filmmakers’ poetic and subjective explorations, ‘Ode to Our Land’ is a journey into courage, persistence and radical foresight.

Director

Rawda Al-Thani

Amal Al Muftah is a Qatari Filmmaker and Director. Her career as a filmmaker started while she was in high school, directing short fiction films and documentaries. During her time at university, Amal directed two award-winning films, 'Smicha' (2015) and 'Sh'hab' (2018), which travelled to more than 50 festivals worldwide. Entering the art world through filmmaking, she directed a short art film for Qatar Museums' Art Mills exhibition, 'In Memory Of' (2022), and a feature documentary, 'Ode To Our Land' (2023), for the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ). Her recent work is 'Light The Sky' (2022), a music video for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. After experimenting with multiple formats, Amal is currently shifting gears to focus on fiction storytelling.

Rawda Al-Thani is a Qatari filmmaker and film programmer at the Doha Film Institute. She holds a degree in Communications with a focus on Middle Eastern Studies from Northwestern University. While in school, she worked as an art director on short film productions, which garnered her interest in architecture and filmmaking. Her first short film, 'I Have Been Watching You All Along' (2017), follows a young woman as she wanders into an abandoned cinema. The film had its international premiere at the Arab Film Festival in San Francisco, screened in the L'Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and won the Special Jury Award at the Ajyal Film Festival 2017. She has since continued to explore film through both filmmaking and research during her Masters in the History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle East at SOAS.

Amal Al-Muftah

Amal Al Muftah is a Qatari Filmmaker and Director. Her career as a filmmaker started while she was in high school, directing short fiction films and documentaries. During her time at university, Amal directed two award-winning films, 'Smicha' (2015) and 'Sh'hab' (2018), which travelled to more than 50 festivals worldwide. Entering the art world through filmmaking, she directed a short art film for Qatar Museums' Art Mills exhibition, 'In Memory Of' (2022), and a feature documentary, 'Ode To Our Land' (2023), for the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ). Her recent work is 'Light The Sky' (2022), a music video for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. After experimenting with multiple formats, Amal is currently shifting gears to focus on fiction storytelling.

Rawda Al-Thani is a Qatari filmmaker and film programmer at the Doha Film Institute. She holds a degree in Communications with a focus on Middle Eastern Studies from Northwestern University. While in school, she worked as an art director on short film productions, which garnered her interest in architecture and filmmaking. Her first short film, 'I Have Been Watching You All Along' (2017), follows a young woman as she wanders into an abandoned cinema. The film had its international premiere at the Arab Film Festival in San Francisco, screened in the L'Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and won the Special Jury Award at the Ajyal Film Festival 2017. She has since continued to explore film through both filmmaking and research during her Masters in the History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle East at SOAS.

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