Film Festival

This week saw the first Dubai Film festival with the theme of "Bridging Cultures. Meeting Minds".
This is a huge event, a first attempt by Dubai to put itself on the international cultural map. Unfortunately there is a lot to learn about pre-publicity. Tickets couldn't be bought or reserved until three days before the first film was shown, and the website  was woefully devoid of actual film listings (prior to the festival). Once the festival started, though, it was a huge success. People had been waiting for such an opportunity to see all the obscure and unusual - i.e. not Hollywood or Bollywood mainstream - movies that never show up in the local cinema chains. The festival had a few spotlights on themes and actors, among them Omar Sharif. It was a stroke of genius that one of the opening movies shown in an open-air amphitheatre in Dubai Media City was 'Lawrence of Arabia'.
The actual showings of most movies were completely sold out within the first days of tickets going on sale. The events were very well organised (although photographers complained they were not given enough access to the gala screening - I guess it's essential to get yet another picture of Orlando, or Sarah Michelle), with masses of volunteers directing the viewers to their seats in one of three cinema venues. I only had the opportunity to cram in 6 movies in the two days before we went to Egypt, but I was impressed with the strangely appropriate space of the Mercato shopping centre, which houses the Century Cinema complex. It's so roomy with lots of coffee shops to sit between movies, space to hang out and recover.

Before and After

Life is varied here in Dubai, desert boots one minute, tux the next.

On Friday night we went out to the desert camping. The place we stopped at is 60 km from Dubai but only 30k was on the highway and the rest was driving through the sand dunes (which is such fun) using GPS and compass to find the way. It is a place called Fossil Rock where there is a large rock in which you can find marine fossils! As it was our first night in a new tent and sleeping bags we did not sleep well, but sitting out the night before around the camp fire looking at the stars and waking up in the complete silence of the desert made it all worth while. There is a surprising amount of life in the desert and we were visited by gerbils during the night and a couple of inquisitive birds in the morning.

During the journey we passed many camels, which made Fiver very happy as she is always excited to see them.

The picture was taken at 8:30am

In the evening we went to a gala charity dinner as the guests of Olof Stenhammer, founder and chairman of OM, a company Stuart has worked for in the past and who is now a potential supplier of exchange systems to him in Dubai. It was a glittering affair attended by the Queen of Sweden and a Saudi prince who is the 4th richest man in the world. We had to sit though some very boring speeches, but it was fun people watching. Some of the dresses were incredible and we soon realised that we were probably the poorest two people in the room!

This picture was taken at 8:30pm

God and Mammon

Today's trip took us from spirituality to consumerism, from Jumeirah Mosque to Bob's Antique Museum.

Unlike many places of the Muslim world, where mosques are open to the non-muslim public, there is only one mosque in Dubai which can be visited. The Sheik Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding has arranged a tour through the mosque's interior with a question and answer session on the subject of Islam. To our surprise a whole crowd had gathered in front of the mosque at 10 am this morning, rather than the few interested souls we had expected. We took off our shoes and the women donned their head scarves, then we were led into the mosque.

The space is simple and square, with few of the complex symbolic spaces of a church. There is a central carpeted area for prayer, a niche at the front, facing Mecca, for the imam, and a separate ladies' prayer room off to one side. Otherwise notable are some reading areas and the signs that show the next day's prayer times.

A volunteer from the centre explained the significance of the architecture to us and then went on to enlighten us on the basic ideas of the Muslim faith, the five pillars of Islam. We talked about the role of women, cultural differences between different Muslim cultures of the World, and the practicalities of prayer. V. interesting.

Inside Jumeirah Mosque

After a refreshment break we moved on to a haven of commerce by the name of Bob's, or the Antique Museum. Both of these names do no justice to this vast warehouse of tack, souvenirs and just general stuff. First of all it is impossible to find on a first visit, as it's in the back of an industrial estate in deepest Al Quoz, near the cement factory, the last place one would imagine shopping for curios. The entrance is in an alleyway, next to a mini-mosque, down a dusty road. But through it's humble portal one enters a huge space of rows and rows of shelves groaning with Indian, Arab, African items, from sculptures to vases, t-shirts to jewellery, pashminas to clocks, Christmas decorations and lamps and fluffy toys, picture frames, sheesha, wooden boxes, curtains, bellydancing costumes...

We shopped till we dropped.

Bob's Antique Museum