DOHA: The Doha Film Institute (DFI) is organising a screening of The Sleeping Tree, the feature film debut of Bahraini filmmaker Mohammed Rashed Bu Ali at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) Auditorium on January 21 and 22.
Part of DFI Cinema Series, Hekayat Khaleejiya: Stories from the Gulf, which provides a window into the region’s creativity and storytelling, the screenings on both days will be followed by Q&A session with the director.
The Sleeping Tree (Bahrain, 2014, Arabic) is about a bedridden young girl, Amina, who suffers from cerebral palsy — a set of permanent movement problems. Her young parents, Jassim and Noora, struggle to keep their marriage afloat as they react to her sickness in different ways — Noora stays at home to care for her daughter and Jassim detaches himself from the situation. When Jassim takes his brother’s taxi out, he comes across the Tree of Life and a spark of hope is ignited within him.
Bu Ali partnered with established screenwriter, Fareed Ramadan, to bring The Sleeping Tree to life. The film blends reality with dreamscapes, the past with the future, and has been an extraordinarily long experience and a very personal process for BuAli, who based the script on his childhood as he watched his sister suffer from the same disease.
Produced by BuAli, Ramadan and Suha Matar, the film stars are celebrated stage and screen actors from Bahrain, including director and actor, Jamaan Al Rowaie, Ibrahim Khalfan, one of the founders of the Bahraini theatre movement, and regional film and TV icons Maryam Zaman and Haifa Hussain.
Regarded as one of Bahrain’s most active filmmakers, BuAli is a trained legal professional who made his foray into filmmaking after the success of his first short film Between Them in 2006. Since then, he has produced short films, including Absence (2008), The Good Omen (2009), and Canary (2010) and was nominated for the IWC Schaffhausen Filmmaker Award for his debut feature.
Tickets are on sale online at www.dohafilminstitute.com and at the DFI Ticket Outlet at the MIA (across the auditorium) on January 21 from noon to 8pm and on January 22 from 2pm to 8pm. Tickets are priced at QR35 and QR25 for students with valid student ID.The Peninsula
