Interview with Sheikha Jawaher bint Abdulla Al Qasimi for Hadara Magazine
I was commissioned by Peter Drennan, Editor of Hadara, to interview Sheikha Jawaher bint Abdulla Al Qasimi, Director of the Sharjah International Film Festival for Children and Youth.
I met her last December in Sharjah, in her office overlooking the sea and had a lovely conversation about her life, her career path, and the importance of running a film festival targeting a young audience. You can read my piece, which is also the cover story in the 14th edition of the magazine which was published earlier this month.
Hadara is a bi-annual journal “that gives voice to a modern and contemporary Sharjah and the people who are shaping it. It is available as a physical magazine and online as well.
Thankful for Peter Drennan’s rigorous, constructive and generous editing, a rare experience I’ve had with editors and publishers in the region.
I’m also happy to see my name next to Katarina Premfors who photographed Sheikha Jawaher for this piece, which I didn’t know till I saw the piece. She’s one of my favourite photographers in Dubai, and in my opinion one of the most important ones who has documented the city since the 1990s.
Below is an extract and a link to read the whole piece.
LIVING LIFE THROUGH STORIES
Storytelling, Sheikha Jawaher bint Abdulla Al Qasimi says, is about identity, connection, and hope. Under her stewardship, the Sharjah International Film Festival for Children and Youth has become an important forum for cultural exchange and a vital platform for young voices.
INTERVIEW BY HIND MEZAINA
PHOTOS BY KATARINA PREMFORS
Sheikha Jawaher bint Abdulla Al Qasimi’s love of storytelling started with books. An avid reader since she was a child, she devoured crime thrillers as a teenager, later biographies, and then true stories. Her father recounted, only recently, that wherever they went, she would go first to a bookshop. A passion for film came later.
Yet the path that led to her to becoming Director of the Sharjah International Film Festival for Children and Youth (SIFF), an annual platform devoted to the craft of storytelling, was anything but linear.