The Culturist Film Club x Jameel Arts Centre on June 21: Cities, Cinema and People
The first Jameel’s Summer Cinema, in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club screening is about cities, cinema, and the people who shape them.
Through two distinct films, we travel from Jeddah to Cairo, exploring how personal memory and collective identity are reflected in the shifting urban landscape, and offering provocative takes on cities in transition told through the eyes of filmmakers reckoning with change, loss, and the power of image-making itself.
Programme 1: Cities, Cinema and People
Date: Saturday, June 21
Time: 7.30pm - 9.30pm
Venue: Lobby, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (location map)
Free to attend, but online registration is required.
Behind the Sun (Bentley Brown, 2023, USA, 17 min)
Amid sweeping systemic shifts in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, leading to the opening of cinemas, a filmmaker processes the emotional debris of a failed relationship by turning to astrophysical imagery.
One such instance is the solar eclipse, when light from stars behind the sun can be observed bending around it—a phenomenon revealing what was once hidden, though distorted in form.
Through this lens, the film reflects on how memory and emotion, like light, are redirected by the forces through which they pass.
Cairo, As Told By Chahine (Youssef Chahine, 1991, Egypt, 23 min)
Chahine mixes documentary and fiction to create a portrait of Egypt’s bustling capital and a major centre of the Arab world.
The view of Cairo that emerges is a chaotic jumble of contrasting poverty and opulence, overcrowded and surging religious intolerance that results in a kaleidoscopic image recalling silent era “cities symphonies” and Federico Fellini’s Roma.
This concise masterpiece began as a commission by French TV for the news series Envoye Special. By filming Cairo with his unique sense of artistic digression, Chahine transformed this portrait of a city into the self-portrait of a filmmaker.
The screenings will be followed by a discussion with Bentley Brown, with audience participation.
About Bentley Brown
A filmmaker and scholar whose work explores disidentification, transnationalism, dialectology, and the artistic translation of science. He began making films while growing up in Chad and has since developed an interdisciplinary portfolio that spans cinema, multi-channel video, music composition, and sound installation. A Berlinale Talent and Durban Talent, Brown’s films have screened at festivals such as Berlinale, True/False, Ars Electronica, Hot Docs, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Brown holds a PhD in Emergent Technologies and Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado-Boulder and currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Media Communication at the American University of Sharjah.