All programs are free and open to audiences. RSVP is mandatory due to limited seating.
Please select an upcoming program in the 'All Programs' section below and click on the RSVP button to view information about the film and reserve your spot. You will receive an automatic email confirmation after registering on the individual film page.
Programs are hosted at the Manarat Al Saadiyat Auditorium unless stated otherwise in the event description.
(Programs dates and times are subject to change.)
Celebrate Ingmar Bergman's centenary with a selection of films presented by the Embassy of Sweden in Abu Dhabi.
Explore ongoing programs of Italian cinema presented in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy in Abu Dhabi.
Explore ongoing programs of Korean cinema presented in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Center in the UAE.
Explore ongoing programs of German cinema presented in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region.
Explore new programs of Spanish cinema presented in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in Abu Dhabi.
Explore ongoing programs presented in collaboration with Institut francais and Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi.
Free Film Screening
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!) | FAMILY FRIENDLY
Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
USA | 1933 | 104 minutes
In English | Rating: G
Synopsis: The original and still the best of the great ape series. Robert Armstrong stars as movie producer Carl Denham who travels to a mysterious, uncharted island in search of material for his next film. Also aboard are actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and adventurer Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot). Once the crew reaches Skull Island they discover it is home to prehistoric beasts including Kong, a giant ape worshipped by the local inhabitants. The mighty Kong shows his sensitive side by falling for Ann, and, after his capture by the crew and transportation to New York, rampages across the city in search of his new love. A film ahead of its time, King Kong defied the technological limitations of the 1930s with its highly imaginative, technically brilliant and revolutionary stop-motion animation. With equal parts adventure, horror and old-fashioned romance, King Kong is a milestone of movie-making that has endured for more than seven decades, captivated audiences and started a worldwide love affair with the giant ape.
Free Film Screening
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Presented by Embassy of Italy in Abu Dhabi
Directed by Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani
Italy | 1984 | 188 minutes
In Italian with English Subtitles | Rating: 15+
Synopsis: Magic, drama, misery, and hope are given life in five tales adapted from Luigi Pirandello’s Novelle per un anno. The stories vary widely in tone, from bitter tragedy (“The Other Son,” in which a shocking revelation illuminates a mother’s rejection of her son), to rustic horror (“Moon Sickness,” in which a new bride discovers that her husband suffers from werewolf-like spells), to broad humor (“The Jar,” in which an arrogant landowner must rely on a crafty hunchback to repair a gigantic container), to angry protest (“Requiem,” in which villagers defy a prohibition against building a cemetery). With a strong, poetic vision of Sicilian life, directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani imbue this epic masterpiece with a serene, sympathetic revelation of mankind that transcends the boundaries of time and make the film a big-screen must.
Free Film Screening
Presented by Embassy of Spain in Abu Dhabi
Directed by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, Tono Errando
Spain | 2010 | 94 minutes
In Spanish with English Subtitles | Rating: 18+
Synopsis: Oscar winning director Fernando Trueba and Spain’s legendary illustrator Javier Mariscal celebrate their passion for the music and culture of Cuba with an epic story of love, passion, and heartbreak. Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and desire unite them as they chase their dreams and each other from Havana to New York to Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas. With an original soundtrack by legendary Cuban pianist and five-time Grammy®-winning composer Bebo Valdés, Chico & Rita captures a defining moment in the evolution of history and jazz, and features the music of (and animated cameos by) Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Tito Puente, Chano Pozo, and others.
Free Film Screening
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!) | FAMILY FRIENDLY
Directed by Henry Selick
USA | 1993 | 76 mins
In English | Rating: G
Overview: Enter an extraordinary world filled with magic and wonder -- where every holiday has its own special land... and imaginative, one-of-a-kind characters! The Nightmare Before Christmas tells the heartfelt tale of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, and all things that go bump in the night. Bored with the same old tricks and treats, he yearns for something more, and soon stumbles upon the glorious magic of Christmas Town! Jack decides to bring this joyful holiday back to Halloween Town. But as his dream to fill Santa's shoes unravels, it's up to Sally, the rag doll who loves him, to stitch things back together. This critically acclaimed movie milestone captured the heart and imagination of audiences everywhere with its Academy Award-nominated stop-motion effects, engaging Grammy-nominated music, and the genius of Tim Burton. The Nightmare Before Christmas -- a delightful treat the whole family will enjoy!
Free Film Screening
Presented by Korean Cultural Center in the UAE
Busanhaeng (Original Title)
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
South Korea | 2016 | 118 minutes
In Korean | English Subtitles | Rating: 15+
Synopsis: When an unidentified virus sweeps the country, the Korean government declares martial law just as divorced Seok-woo and his daughter catch the KTX bullet train from Seoul to Busan to see her mother. As the country descends into chaos, the city of Busan is rumored to have successfully fended off the virus outbreak and remains the only beacon of hope for those not yet infected. But someone on the journey has been recently infected and the virus breaks out on the express train sending the hurtling carriages into complete chaos. As the living dead transform the voyage into a nightmare excursion, father and daughter and a small group of uninfected passengers must fight for survival. Suspicion is rife and tensions run high as some will do anything to survive and make it to the safe zone. 453 km from Seoul to Busan. The struggle to survive. Get on board to stay alive!
Free Film Screening
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
USA | 1960 | 109 minutes
In English | Rating: 18+
Synopsis: One of the most shocking films of all time, director Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a landmark masterpiece of the macabre from the Master of Suspense. Janet Leigh stars as Phoenix secretary Marion Crane, absconding with a small fortune of her employer’s money. Anthony Perkins is nervous Norman Bates, proprietor of the Bates Motel where Miss Crane makes the unfortunate mistake of stopping for the night. At first a private detective, then Marion's sister (Vera Miles) searches for her, the horror and the suspense mount to a terrifying climax where the mysterious killer is finally revealed. Hitchcock’s film has become a cultural phenomenon and remains a singularly thrilling experience creating one of cinema's most notorious psychopaths.
(Program Details Announcing Soon!)
Overview: These wonderful programs feature classic family-friendly films from around the world with selections of terrific laugh-out-loud comedies, magnificent dramas, thrilling adventures and great works of fantasy that are sure to charm and entertain parents, children and audiences of all ages.
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Fanny och Alexander (Original Title)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Sweden | 1982 | 188 minutes
In Swedish | English Subtitles | Rating: 18+
Synopsis: Ingmar Bergman’s wonder-filled evocation of childhood and the magic of theatre is the crowning achievement of one of cinema’s most extraordinary careers. Winner of four Academy Awards, Fanny and Alexander begins during Christmas 1907, with ten-year-old Alexander and younger sister Fanny enjoying the warmth and good humour of their ebullient, eccentric extended family. Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden. Their lives will soon take a less happy turn, however, with the death of their actor father and the remarriage of their mother to a puritanical Protestant minister. Ingmar Bergman intended Fanny and Alexander as his swan song, and it is the director’s warmest and most autobiographical film, an Academy Award–winning triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional intensity with immense joy and sensuality. Bergman described Fanny and Alexander as “the sum total of my life as a filmmaker.”
Kreuzweg (Original Title)
Directed by Dietrich Brüggemann
Germany | 2014 | 110 minutes
In German | English Subtitles | Rating: 15+
Synopsis: 14 year old Maria (Lea Van Acken) is a member of a strict branch of Catholicism that rejects all the reforms that were made in the Church since the 1960s. Maria lives her everyday life in the modern world, yet yearns to follow Jesus fully, to become a saint and go to heaven. Christian, a boy she meets at school, almost draws Maria away from her goal with an invite to join the school's gospel choir, but her strictly pious mother (Franziska Weiz) pulls her back in line, seeing his tentative approaches as a temptation to sin, along with participating in what she sees as the 'Devils music'. Told in fourteen individual tableaus that parallel Christ's journey to his crucifixion, Stations of the Cross is both an indictment of fundamentalist faith and the articulation of an impressionable teen's struggle to find her own path in life.
(Program Details Announcing Soon!)
Overview: These wonderful programs feature classic family-friendly films from around the world with selections of terrific laugh-out-loud comedies, magnificent dramas, thrilling adventures and great works of fantasy that are sure to charm and entertain parents, children and audiences of all ages.
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Japan | 1950 | 88 minutes
In Japanese with English Subtitles | Rating: G
Overview: A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, Rashomon is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. In medieval Japan, four people give different accounts of a man’s murder and the rape of his wife, which director Akira Kurosawa presents with striking imagery and an ingenious use of flashbacks. Expertly paced and superbly acted, the film features magnificent cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa. Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura head the fine cast; legendary actress Machiko Kyo, in a career-making performance, has the female lead. Rashomon was a surprise winner of the Golden Lion at Venice in 1951, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film. This eloquent masterwork and international sensation revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema—and a commanding new star by the name of Toshiro Mifune—to the Western world.
Program Details Announcing Soon!
Overview: Experience beautiful and extraordinary classics showcasing works from renowned filmmakers around the world. Each film has been gloriously revived as a cinematic revelation for you to discover through the art of preserving and restoring cinema. These revivals celebrate the many joys of cinema featuring selections of outstanding works of world cinema.
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
El ángel exterminador (Original Title)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Spain, Mexico | 1962 | 93 minutes
In Spanish | English Subtitles | [ G ]
Synopsis: A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and find themselves inexplicably unable to leave, in Luis Buñuel’s daring masterpiece The Exterminating Angel (El ángel exterminador). Made just one year after the director’s international sensation Viridiana, this film, full of eerie comic absurdity, continues Buñuel’s wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.
(Program Details Announcing Soon!)
Overview: These wonderful programs feature classic family-friendly films from around the world with selections of terrific laugh-out-loud comedies, magnificent dramas, thrilling adventures and great works of fantasy that are sure to charm and entertain parents, children and audiences of all ages.
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
Italy | 1966 | 121 minutes
In French, Arabic | English Subtitles | Rating: PG
Synopsis: One of the most influential political films in history, The Battle of Algiers, by Gillo Pontecorvo, vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the insurgents. Shot on the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film is a case study in modern warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal techniques used to combat them. Pontecorvo’s tour de force has astonishing relevance today.
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
U.K. | 1948 | 133 minutes
In English, French | English Subtitles | Rating: G
Synopsis: The Red Shoes, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Technicolor feasts ever concocted for the screen. Moira Shearer is a rising star ballerina torn between an idealistic composer and a ruthless impresario intent on perfection. Featuring outstanding performances, blazingly beautiful cinematography by Jack Cardiff, Oscar-winning sets and music, and an unforgettable, hallucinatory central dance sequence, this beloved classic, now dazzlingly restored, stands as an enthralling tribute to the life of the artist.
Program Details Announcing Soon!
Overview: Exciting and original storytelling from international filmmakers where you can discover a director’s first or second feature film, fresh styles and challenging ideas in narrative work from around the world. Also included are nonfiction films that explore remarkable stories and issues in the world around us.
a(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Directed by Max Ophuls
Germany, France | 1955 | 115 minutes
In English, German, French | English Subtitles | Rating: G
Synopsis: Lola Montès is a visually ravishing, narratively daring dramatization of the life of the notorious courtesan and showgirl, played by Martine Carol. With his customary cinematographic flourish and, for the first time, vibrant color, Max Ophuls charts the course of Montès’s scandalous past through the invocations of the bombastic ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) of the American circus where she has ended up performing. Ophuls’s final film, Lola Montès is at once a magnificent romantic melodrama, a meditation on the lurid fascination with celebrity, and a one-of-a-kind movie spectacle.
(Program Details Announcing Soon!)
Overview: These wonderful programs feature classic family-friendly films from around the world with selections of terrific laugh-out-loud comedies, magnificent dramas, thrilling adventures and great works of fantasy that are sure to charm and entertain parents, children and audiences of all ages.
Directed by Carlos Saura
Spain | 2010 | 100 minutes
In Spanish | English Subtitles | Rating: G
Synopsis: Directed by legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, Flamenco, Flamenco is an evolutionary musical journey through the light, song and dance of a dynamic and alive art form. Beautifully photographed by famed Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, and showcasing a powerful new Flamenco through dazzling musical and dance performances by emerging talents, and the greatest living Flamenco masters, this unique musical odyssey reaches beyond the borders of Flamenco and Spanish culture toward a universal artistic expression.
Fuocoammare (Original Title)
Directed by Gianfranco Rosi
Italy | 2016 | 108 minutes
In Italian | English Subtitles | Rating: 12+
Synopsis: An Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature and the first nonfiction film to ever win the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, Fire at Sea takes place in Lampedusa, a remote Mediterranean island that has become a major entry point for refugees into Europe. There, we meet Samuele, a 12-year-old boy who lives simply, climbing rocks by the shore and playing with his slingshot. Nearby, we bear witness as thousands of men, women, and children risk their lives to make the brutal crossing from Africa. Award-winning filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi masterfully juxtaposes these realities, jolting the audience into a new understanding of what is happening in the region, the heavy toll of the migrant crisis, and the price of freedom.
(Program Details Announcing Soon!)
Overview: These wonderful programs feature classic family-friendly films from around the world with selections of terrific laugh-out-loud comedies, magnificent dramas, thrilling adventures and great works of fantasy that are sure to charm and entertain parents, children and audiences of all ages.
(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)
Höstsonaten (Original Title)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Sweden | 1978 | 93 minutes
In Swedish | English Subtitles | Rating: PG
Synopsis: Autumn Sonata was the only collaboration between cinema’s two great Bergmans: Ingmar and Ingrid, the monumental star of Casablanca. The grande dame, playing an icy concert pianist, is matched beat for beat in ferocity by the filmmaker’s recurring lead Liv Ullmann, as her eldest daughter who she largely abandoned to pursue a career. Over the course of a day and a long, painful night that the two spend together after an extended separation, they finally confront the bitter discord of their relationship. This cathartic pas de deux, evocatively shot in burnished harvest colors, ranks among the director’s major dramatic works and earned Oscar nominations for Ingrid’s performance and Ingmar’s original screenplay.
Program Details Announcing Soon!
Overview: Exciting and original storytelling from international filmmakers where you can discover a director’s first or second feature film, fresh styles and challenging ideas in narrative work from around the world. Also included are nonfiction films that explore remarkable stories and issues in the world around us.
