The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (ICA) has partnered with two Middle East-focussed projects in September, bringing a selection of the region’s film and underground culture to the city.
The Masafat festival will present four days of performances, installations, talks and workshops, by underground artists and musicians working within the context of the Middle East. Opening at the ICA (1-4 September), the festival will then head to Cairo (20-24 September), with the aim of promoting artistic exchange between the Middle East and Europe. Highlights include a discussion on alternative music and arts infrastructure in the current political climate of Cairo and the Middle East, and a screening of Out on the Street (2015) by Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk, a film that follows a group of working class Egyptian labourers who take part in an acting workshop.
Later in the month, the ICA will host the Safar Film Festival (14-18 September), presenting a selection of contemporary films from the Arab world chosen by the curator Rasha Salti, who was previously the international programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival. This is the third iteration of the biennial Safar festival, organised by the London-based Arab British Centre (ABC), which this year is being partly funded by a crowd-funding campaign. It aims to show how Arab cinema continues to push the boundaries of the medium and achieve popular acclaim in spite of mounting censorship, conservatism and the pressures of an ever-shrinking market in the region. “Rasha Salti’s selection will give audiences food for thought with a line of contemporary films that explore provocative subjects defying a number of social and political taboos. Works by Monira Al Qadiri, whose film shorts reference a range of subjects from dysfunctional gender roles to social and political issues, is a great example of this,” says Nadia El-Sabai, the director of the ABC.
Katharine Stout, the head of programme at the ICA, says that hosting these two events focusing on the Middle East is part of the ICA’s ongoing commitment to showing the most current and challenging art and culture today from around the world. “It is not only about looking at geographic areas that are topical—we’re also aware that there is a large audience for such events about the Middle East in London and the UK and we have been able to partner with a number of institutions from the region,” she says.
