During the session titled 'Keeping up with the Current Cinematic Situation in the UAE and Mexico' and moderated by author Estrella Araiza, Al Dhahiri discussed his journey of making his debut film, ‘A Tale of Water, Palm Trees and Family’. He said the idea began with a question about the roots of the UAE and its population, noting that he went on a lengthy process accompanied by filmmakers from the Netherlands to find the origins of Emiratis that date back thousands of years.
According to Al Dhahiri, there was a close relationship between travellers who passed through the UAE bearing water and palm trees, which he documented through pictures and stories passed down through the generations.
On challenges facing UAE cinema, he said these issues are similar to those faced worldwide regarding independent cinema, which is essentially lacking proper funding. In addition, he noted that 90 percent of films shown in the UAE are American, while the rest are divided between Arabic titles and other films in English.
Commenting on the advancement of technology, he said: "In the old days, film production was very expensive, and errors were costly, this was in addition to the costs related to building filming sets. With digital cameras and computer generated imagery, this helped lower the costs in production, a good early example of this was the film ‘Titanic’, which used these tools to make their project viable. Even though it was not obvious to the audience, the captivating and expansive scenes it had, were surprisingly shot in a small pool."
Samuel Kishi talked about some of the troubles he had faced in the film industry by recalling the story of one of the films he had worked on. He said the film was selected for the Berlin Film Festival, however, all screens were booked, and there was no opportunity for him to screen his film due to the number of commercial films being screened.
In reference to Al Dhahiri's comment about the imbalance of films screened in his country, Samuel said American films dominate Mexican cinemas, noting that independent foreign films account for only 1 percent, local films account for only 6 percent, and 93 percent was taken up by American movies, which according to him, makes screening independent films very challenging.
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