

Fast forward to October 27 this year, Arabian Business published an article announcing a new festival - ON.DXB to focus on regional talent, content as Dubai 'moves on' from DIFF.



Dubai “had to move on” from the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) to focus on rapidly changing technology and content and focus more on the work of Emirati and Arab filmmakers, according to Jamal Al Sharif, the CEO of the Dubai Film and TV Commission. On Wednesday, the Dubai Film and TV Commission and Dubai Media City announced the line-up for On.DXB, a regional festival designed to support industry growth and talent development in media, entertainment and content development. The event will focus on films, music, online content and video games.

Jamal Al Sharif, now the CEO of the Dubai Film and TV Commission was quoted in the article stating ON.DXB was an example of a festival that had “morphed”, “event names, or event brand names, eventually change depending on the era and place we’re in”, Dubai is “experimenting with a whole new media industry”.

“On.DXB should be complementing other events that we did in the past,” he added. “We learned a lot from the other events, therefore we’re not missing film. Film will be there.” “I’ve been asking the team to focus more on local and regional films. I’m really keen on developing more local talent,” he said. “It’s beautiful to see Hollywood and Bollywood films. We’ve grown with these films, but we want to evolve. It’s time to tell the world what the UAE has to tell, and what our story is.” In the future, Al Sharif said that Dubai hopes to do “something bigger” than DIFF. “We can do bigger than the rest of the world,” he said.

At the last edition of DIFF in 2017, the opening remarks of Noura Al Kaabi, UAE’s Minister of Culture & Knowledge Development stated the importance of film and cinema. It made me wonder does a decision like cancelling an important cultural event like DIFF go through the Minister of Culture & Knowledge Development or is it yet another corporate decision in Dubai outweighing its cultural importance and legacy?

There wasn’t enough public outcry in 2018 about the disappearance of DIFF, especially by the filmmaking community in the UAE. If there was any outcry, it was probably behind closed doors. It is, after all, a small filmmaking community and no one wants to burn bridges. Would things have been different if there was a bigger public outcry, or if an appeal was made to the Ministry of Culture? Who knows?



Going through the programme and line up of ON.DXB, it is more like a media mash up festival, targeting the Gen Zs with talks about ‘content’ and ‘platforms’ and influencers, social media, game industry. The line up of speakers/moderators, reminded me of a friend who once described certain Dubai social media personalities as legends in their own timelines.

The program included live music, film screenings (a handful of films from the festival circuit, plus local and regional films).



The biggest name invited to ON.DXB was Spike Lee. I must say it was an odd choice. For an event that wants to “focus more on the work of Emirati and Arab filmmakers”, why only invite a big name Hollywood film director? Why not invite renowned filmmakers from the Arab world? And if the Spike Lee talk was promoted as the main event, then at least do a film focus in his honour or at least screen one of his films in the programme.

Additionally, the UAE is such a diverse country with filmmakers from around the world, so why always focus on Arab filmmakers only?

The main talks including Spike Lee at ON.DXB was for industry ticket holders which cost AED 950 (approximately USD 260), student pass AED 500 (approximately USD 140), regular daily tickets was AED 100 (approximately USD 30). I have no idea who was expected to pay AED 950 or AED 500. Leading up to the festival, lots of 50% discount codes were announced, and on the day of the festival, ticket prices were reduced to AED 50 (approximately USD 13). As another friend said, ON.DXB is like the Pierre Cardin of film festivals (referring to all the “Pierre Cardin” discounted shops in Dubai).

The festival was run by a PR agency and I suspect, as things normally happen in this town, they weren’t given enough time to work on it. But it was also clear the PR agency wasn’t specialised in cinema.

For full disclosure, I was approached by the PR agency to contribute to the film program, but due to the lack of time to work on it and budget limitations from their end I declined.

I understand the reasons for having a festival focusing on all forms of media and targeting a younger audience. But it is hard to accept it as an alternative to DIFF.

I don’t understand why cancel a film festival that played a role in the region. The film market benefitted local and regional filmmakers, there was Enjaz, a funding programme for films, and of course the week long program of film screenings which had an audience that returned every year.

Film festivals shift focus, rethink its strategy, scale and programming. DIFF could’ve done that if it was going through challenging times. It could’ve taken a year off to rethink its strategy instead of coming up with a Gen Z version of TED talks.

ON.DXB doesn’t elevate film culture in the UAE or the Arab world and everyone involved is implicit in this. If anything, film and filmmaking culture appears to have regressed in the UAE.