NOVEMBER BEGINS for Galway film enthusiasts with Theeb, which offers a very different take on the Arab revolt against the Ottomans from those normally seen by Western audiences.
Theeb, made in the UAE, Qatar, and Jordon, will be screened by the Galway Film Society this Sunday at 8pm. Directed by Naji Abu Nowar, it won numerous awards including the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Narrative Film at Abu Dhabi Film Festival 2014.
It is about a young Bedouin boy unwittingly pulled into the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire by an Englishman. Set in the same time and place as Lawrence of Arabia, it is something of an antithesis to David Lean’s celebrated epic. That film saw the Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire as the birth of Arab nationalism, a rapid process of unification midwifed and nursed by the English. Theeb offers a different view, insisting on the importance of preserving cultural difference against the totalising vision of racial and religious hegemony.
Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777 or www.tht.ie
