A major new UK film festival dedicated to Muslim cinema announced its inaugural lineup on Tuesday, with a slew of award-winning films featuring the likes of Riz Ahmed and Informer’s Nabhaan Rizwan.
Ahmed, winner of an Oscar for best live action short film, will appear in Dammi, a short film directed by Yann Demange, the French film-maker best known for Top Boy and Northern Ireland-set drama ’71. Ahmed co-stars with Isabelle Adjani in a story about a man confronting his French and Algerian heritage on a trip to Paris. Rizwan plays the lead in In Camera, a British feature directed by Naqqash Khalid that screened at the London film festival, as an actor struggling to make a career in the film industry in the face of repeated rejections.
Other programme highlights include Hounds, a Casblanca-set crime yarn from Moroccan-born writer-director Kamal Lazraq, which will open the festival after winning a prize in the Un Certain Regard selection at Cannes; multi-award-winning Jordanian film Inshallah a Boy, about a widow (Mouna Hawa) pretending to be pregnant with a son to fend off legal problems; and another Cannes prize-winner, Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia, set during the pre-separation period, about a woman from the north and her maid, who is from the south.
In a statement, the festival said: “At a time of polarised public opinion and a prevalence of negative portrayals of Muslims in the mainstream media, MIFF has arrived on the international film festival circuit with a mission to celebrate and amplify the diverse voices that explore the rich tapestry of Muslim experiences via the medium of film.”
Festival director Sajid Varda added: “The festival is … a vibrant celebration of cultures and stories from across the Muslim world, providing a spotlight on talented emerging and seasoned film-makers from all corners of the globe.”
The festival reflects the increasing prominence of cinema in the Muslim world, and follows the Qisah film festival, which showed 15 films in venues across London in November 2022.
The Muslim international film festival runs from 30 May to 2 June at the Odeon West End in London.
• The headline and introduction to this article were amended on 19 April 2024. An earlier version referred to the festival as “the UK’s first major Muslim film festival”. This has been changed and a reference to an earlier festival, which showed films from the Muslim world in November 2022 has been included.
