Join us for an evening of film, conversation, and community as we kick off Jameel’s Summer Cinema, in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club, with a night dedicated to cities, cinema, and the people who shape them.

Through two distinct films, we travel from Jeddah to Cairo, exploring how personal memory and collective identity are reflected in the shifting urban landscape. Behind the Sun and Cairo, As Told By Chahine offer poetic and provocative takes on cities in transition told through the eyes of filmmakers reckoning with change, loss, and the power of image-making itself.

Behind the Sun (Bentley Brown, 2023, USA, 17 min)
Amid sweeping systemic shifts in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, leading to the opening of cinemas, a filmmaker processes the emotional debris of a failed relationship by turning to astrophysical imagery. One such instance is the solar eclipse, when light from stars behind the sun can be observed bending around it—a phenomenon revealing what was once hidden, though distorted in form. Through this lens, the film reflects on how memory and emotion, like light, are redirected by the forces through which they pass.

Cairo, As Told By Chahine (Youssef Chahine, 1991, Egypt, 23 min)
Chahine mixes documentary and fiction to create a portrait of Egypt’s bustling capital and a major centre of the Arab world. The view of Cairo that emerges is a chaotic jumble of contrasting poverty and opulence, overcrowded and surging religious intolerance that results in a kaleidoscopic image recalling silent era “cities symphonies” and Federico Fellini’s Roma. This concise masterpiece began as a commission by French TV for the news series Envoye Special. By filming Cairo with his unique sense of artistic digression, Chahine transformed this portrait of a city into the self-portrait of a filmmaker.

Following the screening, Hind Mezaina will be in conversation with filmmaker Bentley Brown. Audiences are encouraged to engage in collective viewing, stay for the discussion, and enjoy food and refreshments available throughout the evening.

Screenings are free to attend. Registration is required.
Curated by Hind Mezaina, founder of The Culturist Film Club.

Bentley Brown is a filmmaker and scholar whose work explores disidentification, transnationalism, dialectology, and the artistic translation of science. He began making films while growing up in Chad and has since developed an interdisciplinary portfolio that spans cinema, multi-channel video, music composition, and sound installation. A Berlinale Talent and Durban Talent, Brown’s films have screened at festivals such as Berlinale, True/False, Ars Electronica, Hot Docs, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Brown holds a PhD in Emergent Technologies and Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado-Boulder and currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Media Communication at the American University of Sharjah.

Hind Mezaina is an artist, film curator and writer from Dubai. Her interests lie in cinema, cities, visual culture, collective memory and archives. As an artist she works primarily in analogue photography and lately with moving image. As a film curator, she has programmed screenings for local institutions including National Pavilion UAE, NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Sharjah Art Foundation, The Africa Institute, Alliance Française Dubai, and Jameel Arts Centre. In 2024, Mezaina was included in Screen International’s Future Leaders 2024: Film Festival Programmers and Curators to Watch.  In 2009 she founded The Culturist blog, and in 2022 she started The Culturist Film Club hosted at various venues across Dubai.
www.hindmezaina.com

Image: Still from Behind the Sun (Bentley Brown, 2023)