Join us for an evening of film, conversation, and community as we conclude Jameel’s Summer Cinema, in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club, with a programme devoted to the meaning of home and the communities we build.

From the intimacy of a family heirloom to the quiet loneliness of city life, these four short films explore ideas of belonging, identity, and human connection with humour, tenderness, and insight.

Why is My Grandfather’s Bed in Our Living Room? (Sarah Alhashimi, 2021, UAE, 7 min)
An Emirati family lost their ancestral house to community development plans aimed at modernizing the city. As they recall the sudden loss of the family house, it is apparent that a century old wooden bed, the only tangible memory that remains, is a poignant feature of their story.

Practical Dreams (Yulia Piskuliyska, 2019, UAE, 9 min)
An experimental documentary which examines the existential outlook on life of Antony, a long-time UAE resident who builds houses for a living but is at a loss when it comes to explaining what home really means to him.

The Tobacconist (Keifer Nyron Taylor, 2024, UK, 22 min)
Tobias, an unemployed British-Jamaican personal trainer, sells counterfeit tobacco for his mother who is moving back to Jamaica after deportation threats. One violent encounter with a war veteran Rough Sleeper, a spectral reminder of his father who also fought as a British subject, turns his quick cash scheme into a haunting odyssey across South London.

Tender Loving Care (Kalina Pulit, 2023, UK, 20 min)
A single woman in her 30s living in London struggles with the feelings of isolation, and decides to call up various customer care lines in search of connection. She pushes the boundaries of people she speaks to, with varying results. She seeks dating advice from her bank, talks about films with her doctor and bonds with her Internet provider over the topic of reincarnation. Call centres become a backdrop for conversations about the meaning of life and big city loneliness.

Following the screening, filmmaker Sarah Alhashimi will be in conversation with Hind Mezaina. 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.

Sarah Alhashimi is an Emirati filmmaker and creative director whose work explores identity, memory, and emotion through a poetic visual language. Her award-winning short Why Is My Grandfather’s Bed in Our Living Room? has screened at regional and international festivals. A SEAF Fellow and Arab Film Studio alum, she continues to shape powerful narratives across film and visual campaigns.

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 The Tobacconist (Keifer Nyron Taylor, 2024)