Good deed of the week? Go see Champ of the Camp

February 01, 2014 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, construction, launches, Movies, UAE, cinema

This weekend, Champ of The Camp, the remarkable documentary film by locally based filmmaker Mahmood Kaboor (Being Osama and Grandma: A Thousand Times) hit cinemas nationwide. For a film like this, in a country like this, to get a theatrical release is a major achievement and it follows months of social media campaigning, international press coverage and negotiations with local distributors. But if ticket sales don’t live up to the distributor’s expectations, Champ of the Camp might disappear from cinemas within days. Right now, there is no better way to support two historically disregarded groups in the UAE: manual workers and independent documentary filmmakers.

Bad ad of the moment: Center for Waste Management - Abu Dhabi

November 17, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, advertising, bad ad of the moment, comedy, media, UAE

While it is clear that the Center for Waste Management – Abu Dhabi (CWM) is valiantly fighting an uphill struggle to get the general public to dispose of household trash in a responsible manner, this attempt at an innovative public information campaign is not doing them (or us) any favours. Using comic strips to make unsavoury topics such as pest control and domestic hygiene more palatable is not a bad approach. But cramming cultural and gender stereotypes into six panels of patronising storyline is no way to go about it.

Here be museums: promising signs at the Saadiyat construction site

October 10, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, architecture, master plans, UAE, construction, anecdotes

The neatly dressed man with the backpack is standing by the side of the highway, next to a broken-down car, and waves at us. At first, we think he wants us to tow him, but it turns out he is not worried about getting to a repair shop; he has applied for work at the Louvre Abu Dhabi construction site and the breakdown has made him late for his job interview. Can we take him to Saadiyat island? Sure, we say. Of course. Secretly, I am not just happy to help the guy out, I'm also quite excited to see what is going on at a construction site I've watched with anticipation ever since I moved to Abu Dhabi. A few months ago, it finally went from stagnation to 24-hour activity and I have been wanting to peek behind the security fence ever since.

Beef graphics, anyone?

September 29, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, journalism, media, UAE, food, graphics, illustrations

Cows are getting a lot of press these days, most of it bad. Whether it is because of their climate-destroying metabolism, the use of vampire steroids in their rearing or the deeper meaning of steak, media outlets everywhere have been serving juicy stories on the ins and outs of red-meat consumption. In the UAE, a number of magazine editorials have focused, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the less ominous, more marketable aspects of our infatuation with beef, such as restaurant reviews and recipes. As a result, bovine diagrams like this one are popping up all over the place.

New beats in town: indie nights out in Dubai

September 16, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Dubai, events, UAE, music, nightlife, parties

And suddenly, just like that, Dubai has real DJs throwing real parties. No red-carpets, no dress codes, no processions of magnum bottles with sparklers on top. Just some music-loving people hiring a bar (or a boat) to play ace tunes for small crowds. Who would have thought that budget hotels in dusty Al Barsha would be where it's at one day?

Visit Palestine poster remixed by Larissa Sansour

September 10, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in art, Dubai, events, israel, launches, recommendations, UAE

Last night I came across this poster at the eminently busy season opening at Al Serkal Avenue. It caught my eye because I have the original version, bearing the words "Visit Palestine" and the silhouette of the Dome of the Rock, hanging in my front room. With that random connection to my humble dwelling, I was captivated and, undoubtedly, so will be multitudes of others. Such is the power of pop culture references, which come in many shapes, most of them addictive. It's all very tongue-in-cheek, as was much of the art on display last night. Humour, it seems, is not just the safety vent of political and social subversion; it is also a sharp hook for the slippery attention span of the viewer.

Guilty pleasure: tales from behind the veil

August 13, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, books, Dubai, literature, local culture, UAE, women's rights, saudi arabia

As a visit to any bookshop in the UAE reveals, an entire genre of novels based on the promise of ‘lifting the veil’ and revealing the ‘hidden lives’ of women in traditional Muslim societies has emerged and is doing brisk trade. Many of them, such as Jean Sasson's blockbuster Princess series, deal specifically with the lives of women in Saudi Arabia. Slowly but surely, the women of the UAE are also becoming the subject of such literary portrayals. To me, these books are strangely irresistible, a guilty pleasure. Guilty, because the reasons for this fascination seem to oscillate between a principled intention to explore local writing and an indignant kind of voyeurism. Awkward stuff. But I can't help myself, I want to read them all. For better or worse, these are three tales from behind the veil I've devoured most recently.

No joke

June 23, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, events, UAE, comedy, lebanon, israel

No country for funny men, this. The entire Middle East leg of Russell Brand's world tour The Messiah Complex, which was meant to open in Abu Dhabi on August 15, just got cancelled because of threats from extremists. How dreary. How tedious. How disappointingly predictable. Update (24 June): Come to think of it, if this outcome happens to have been part of Brand's PR plan all along, I'd like add this: how lame. How manipulative. How defeatist.

Magazine movement: new mags from Dubai and Beirut

June 18, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Dubai, lists, local culture, media, recommendations, UAE, launches

Magazines in the UAE are not what they used to be and, unlike in some other places, that's a good thing. We now have access to a larger number of less predictable titles, as well as more interesting places to buy and read them. Case in point: The Magazine Shop in Dubai, pictured above. At the open-air pop-up shop in DIFC, stalwarts of the Middle Eastern mag pile, such as Canvas, Bidoun and Brownbook, now share shelf space with spirited uppers-and-comers like Watad, We Are Here, The Outpost and The Carton. I call them the 'Generation X of Mid-East Magazines' because they are experimental, exquisite and unapologetically expensive.

All booked out for summer

June 01, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in books, history, journalism, literature, local culture, media, UAE, women's rights, recommendations, lists

I just noticed with horror that my last blog entry dates back almost a month. All the way back to the day after Abu Dhabi Book Fair, to be precise, which was also the day before a European holiday and about four weeks after the day I discovered the What are you reading? podcast. So there you have it, an explanation of sorts. As it turns out, the combination of fair (book launches!), trip (proper bookshops!) and podcast (book recommendations from interesting-sounding people!) has had a pretty disruptive effect on my blogging morale. To make it up, here is a snapshot of the month’s loot, a stack of brand new books now languishing seductively on my desk.

A world apart

May 06, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in media, UAE, journalism, Dubai, local culture, women's rights

The UAE's social norms make segregation of the sexes in many public places a fact of life. Not in a forced way, like in Saudi Arabia, but rather based on an optional model that provides 'special' amenities, such as ladies-only seats on buses or separate screenings at film festivals. From a Western perspective, it can be difficult to see that, in the local context, these services empower women because they allow those of a conservative background to make inroads into public life. Unfortunately, the ladies-only world is full of hair-raising language and practicalities.

Bad ad of the moment: Tiffany & Co.

April 24, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in advertising, media, UAE, uae media watch, bad ad of the moment

You can tell a lot about a place by looking at the advertising messages it creates and consumes. Unfortunately, the UAE seems to get more than its fair share of bad advertising. So much of it, in fact, that I will post some of the worst examples I come across on this blog from now on. The first bad ad comes from one of my least favourite sub-genres of advertising: the advertorial (adverts dressed up as editorial coverage). Having been involved in the production of advertorials in the past, I know how tedious, often impossible, it is to square the interests of the reader and the advertiser. As this example from the current issue of Brownbook magazine shows, even the UAE’s most style-conscious publications don't always get this balance right.

The crocodile and the canard

April 11, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in journalism, Dubai, UAE, media, uae media watch, art, photography

This morning, I was about to chuck away the free copy of 7Days that lands on my doorstep every day, when the cover story caught my attention: "Is there a nile croc loose in Dubai Creek?" read the headline, set above an image of an open-mouthed specimen of the species. When I flipped to the page with the 'amateur snapshot' the story was based on, I saw that Duncan Hare, the reporter who wrote it, had fallen for a hoax.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the fax

April 03, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch

Well, perhaps love is a strong word for it, but in recent weeks three fax-related things happened that made me see the good old fax in a slightly more positive light.

Road rage: Emirati journalist gets slated for controversial blog on driving habits

March 27, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, UAE, journalism

It’s safe to say that Ayesha Al Khoori has had a pretty terrible week. On March 21, The National published a controversial blog post by the young Emirati journalist, in which she intended to argue against a new proposal to lower the legal driving age in the UAE; an argument she decided to spice up with personal anecdotes about her own driving habits. Three days later, she was forced to respond publicly to a deluge of thousands of angry responses from readers.