Fading Cultures

This movie was made during Art College by me and my colleague Alia. We had a brief from our professor which was to make a movie about any subject we wanted as long as it had a narrative and we had to use green screen in the video. It was made June 2005 as our final project for this class.
Today I look back at the video and there are a few things that need to be changed: The translation needs a shadow so its legible and I need to delete the green screen which we had to use in the end since in we never wanted to use it but did so unwillingly because of the brief.

About the movie Fading Cultures:
We decided to base the film on reality which is the fact that the culture of Dubai is changing, symbols of our culture are being pushed aside to make room for the new. This short film depicts the departure of the camel jokies from Dubai in 2005 because of human rights issues.
The area that these camels use to train and race was right behind where I lived and grew up. I remember going to the races as a child with my father and my uncles. Sadly the quiet place I knew as home is now turning into a gigantic monstrosity of a metropolis which has been branded as the Maydan.
Unfortunately due to expansion and growth the camels have moved from Nad Al Sheba Dubai, but thankfully are still racing in an area called Marmoom. To me camel racing was a big part of our culture which today feels like is fading. Even though the culture of racing still exists, the experience of driving on the road away from the city and finding the camel race track literally 5 minutes from the centre of Dubai to what we know as the outskirts and witnessing the training was an utter joy. People could see camels racing with a backdrop of sky scrapers reaching for the sky behind them. It was a marvellous experience being there and seeing this unique view of the past and the present merging on one landscape.
Today the earth and the hearts of many locals are scarred by all the sudden change and disregard for what was. We hear the tractors rumbling on the sand where the camels use to race; constructing hotels and parking lots with no knowledge of the fact they are burying a history which is fading right in-front of our eyes.
The question is how do we preserve a cultural identity in the midst of all these changes?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• camels
• dubai
• jokies
• Humanities
• Language
• Media
• Visual
• Arts
• Communications
• UAE
• mrachbee

[maqierify]

@now4sygdifferent Continuing on from you said im not surprised at this film portraying child abuse reasoned by a fear mongering campaign for tradition. She is the daughter of the absolute monarch, Mohammed Makhtoum of Dubai.

This video is mroe of a propoganda statement for her father

[now4stgdifferent]

Are you saying that using children as camel jockeys is ok? Most of these children have been taken from their parents at a very young age and made to work for little or no pay. Many are killed or permenantly injured during races and are starved by their 'employers' so that they are lighter. The film seems to say that the UN is getting in the way of this 'culture' but actually the UN is trying to stand up for these children who are alone in the middle of the desert with no one to help them.