Ajyal Film Festival 2024

All Films

Don't Get Too Comfortable (لا تاخذ راحتك)

Ajyal Competition, Made in Qatar, Ajyal at Vox, Ajyal at Katara - Ajyal Film Festival 2021

Shaima Tamimi / Short Documentary / Yemen, United States of America, Netherlands, Qatar, United Arab Emirates / 2021 / 9 min / Colour / DCP / In Arabic, English, Swahili / Arabic subtitles / Middle East Premiere
Rated: Parental guidance is advised. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

Synopsis

Nominated for an Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film at this year’s Venice Film Festival, ‘Don’t Get Too Comfortable’ is a heartfelt, introspective letter to the filmmaker’s deceased grandfather. The letter questions the continuous pattern of movement amongst Yemenis in diaspora. The film fuses archival photographs, sourced footage, parallax animation, and abstract videos to create an audio-visual body of work that calls attention to the collective feeling of statelessness and sense of being felt by Yemeni (or non-Yemeni) migrants.

About the Director

Shaima Al-Tamimi is a Yemeni-East African visual storyteller based in the GCC. Her work explores migration, identity, and culinary culture through introspection and a deeply-rooted documentary approach. Using photography, film, audio and writing as mediums, she merges historical and family archives with present-day portraits and visuals to create vivid narratives. Challenging mainstream and linear notions of identity, her work offers unique perspectives into the lives of her subjects and calls for a more nuanced understanding of native experiences. Previous projects include the 2020 global “Prints for Yemen” fundraiser and ‘Voices from the Urbanscape’ (2017). Her work has been featured in Gulf Photo Plus, Art 29, JDEED Magazine, Khaleejesque Magazine, CNN, and Doha News.

Credits

Director
Shaima Tamimi
Producer
Mayar Hamdan
Editor
Mayar Hamdan
Sound
Falah Hannoun
Mixing
Nadim Maalouf
Cast
Shaima Al Tamimi, Saleh Al Tamimi, Ramla Al Tamimi, Sanaa, Iman, Mohammed, Sultan Al Tamimi

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