Category: Kuwait

The Kuwait International Film Retreat have just opened up their registration. If you have a short film that you produced in the past two years you have until April 10 to submit it.

The 2nd Edition of the Kuwait International Film Retreat will be a 3-day mini-film festival bringing together filmmakers and enthusiasts from around Kuwait and the Region to take part in short and feature film screenings, workshops, social gatherings, the red carpet, and an awards ceremony showcasing the best short films in competition.

Last year the Film Retreat earned a lot of respect and praise when they decided to play the movie Tokai at the event even though the Ministry of Information had banned them from doing so.

So if you’re a filmmaker this is a great event to be part of and a great way to get noticed. For more information visit the Kuwait International Film Retreat website [Here]

The British Council is launching a new radio show on 99.7 starting next week called The Selector Radio Show. The show will be presented by the famous British radio presenter Goldierocks and feature the best contemporary British music. It will air every Wednesday from 4 to 5PM. On the occasion of the launch of the show, a musical event will be held this coming Friday at Marina Crescent featuring live music by local bands. Below is the event details:

Event: The Selector Radio Launch & Music Showcase
Date: March 8th Friday
Time: 2:00pm to 8:00pm
Location: Marina Crescent

This collaboration between the British Council and 99.7 is pretty cool but just one hour once a week isn’t enough. 99.7 should consider more of this collaborative work preferably finding something to replace the current morning show with or just BRING BACK LATINA MINA!

Over 1,500 students from 75 schools will be cleaning up 25 beaches tomorrow in an hour. The campaign titled “Rescuing Our Coasts in an Hour” is not meant only to clean the coasts but also to encourage and teach students the value of voluntary work. [Source]

I really like the idea but it could also be very demotivating for the students if they visit the beach again after the weekend and see all the litter back again and their hard work gone to waste. Even though the baladiya has added a ton of new garbage bins all along the coastal pathway (like every 10 meters), a lot of people are still ignoring them.

While we’re on the subject, whatever happened to the KD1,000 fine for barbecuing in a public place? They should bring it back and create another fine for littering as well.

Picture above from the Doha beach clean up [Link]

The P2BK event for 2013 will start tomorrow and last for the next two weeks. This year the set up is a lot more interesting with an outdoor old souk that was built specifically to host this event. There will be a ton of Kuwaiti businesses participating including already established ones as well as new ones and since the weather is fantastic right now it should be pretty enjoyable checking all the various stalls out.

The event is taking place at the Mishref Fair Ground and will be open from 10AM to 10PM. You can visit the P2BK website for some more information but most of their sections don’t seem to be working right now. [Website]

Arabian Business released their “100 most powerful Arab women 2013” list and 11 Kuwaiti women made the top 100. This year the most powerful Kuwaiti women was Suad Al Humaidi who came in at number 10. Compared to last year, 13 Kuwaiti women made it to the list in 2012 with the most powerful being Sheikha Al Bahar at number 8. Below is the current ranking of all the powerful Kuwaiti women who made the top 100.

10 – Suad Al Humaidi
16 – Sheikha Hessa Bint Saad Abdullah Salem Al Sabah
21 – Sheikha Al Bahar (pictured above)
34 – Maha Al Ghunaim
44 – Donna Sultan
55 – Rola Dashti
58 – Sara Akbar
63 – Maha Hussain
78 – Riham Fouad Al Ghanim
88 – Ghosson Al Khaled
94 – Faten Al Naqeeb

For the full list and article, visit the Arabian Business website [Here]

Over the weekend I visited Jahra for the first time with a friend and I have to say it turned out to be a lot more interesting than I was expecting it to be. Below are some things I would recommend doing if you do decide to visit (listed in the order I visited):

Al Sabeenat
Al Sabeenat is a traditional Kuwaiti restaurant located in Jahra. The place is pretty spacious and on a Friday for lunch we had no trouble at all finding a place to sit. I had the morabyen and it was pretty good and price wise they seemed similar to Freej Swaileh. The restaurant is also located near a resort, a mall and The 99 Village which makes it a convenient starting point. Here is their location on [Google Maps]

Random Art
I found this by chance hidden behind a building and I thought it was pretty cool and very random. There were two walls, one had bicycles mounted all over it while the other had designs created with hubcaps. To find the place you need to enter the mall near Al Sabeenat and come out the other side where you will find a Red Tag store. The two walls are located behind Red Tag so you need to make your way to the back of that building (there are some hidden stairs behind the mosque). Here is the location on [Google Maps]

The 99 Village
Take an amusement park and slap some stickers with The 99 superhero characters and you end up with The 99 Village. Wasn’t that disappointing a visit since they had a sack slide which I was able to slide down a few times. But sadly they didn’t let me jump on the trampolines. Here is the location on [Google Maps]

Hungry Bunny
Hungry Bunny was one of the first fast food burger joints in Kuwait and so it holds a big nostalgia factor. I had the Super Bunny and I thought it was pretty decent and tasted very similar to what I recall a Super Bunny tasting like in the 80s. But, unless you have childhood memories of the place, Hungry Bunny might not be for you. Here is the location on [Google Maps]

Red Fort
We ended our visit to Jahra with a tour of the Red Fort (or Red Palace). The Red Fort was the site of the Battle of Jahra in 1920 between Kuwaiti and Saudi forces and so has historical importance. The fort was smaller than I expected it to be and not that exciting as well but entrance was free and it was nice to walk around inside. Here is the location on [Google Maps]

Even though nothing we visited had a wow factor, when combined all these places provided for a pretty entertaining afternoon.

The Green Caravan Film Festival is back for the 4th time and will be taking place in Kuwait from March 9th to March 12th. The film lineup for this festival are the following:

CHASING ICE
Follow National Geographic photographer James Balog across the Arctic as he deploys time-lapse cameras designed for one purpose: to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.

IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
A rare behind-the-curtain look at the Earth Liberation Front, the radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s ‘number one domestic terrorist threat.’

THE TSUNAMI AND THE CHERRY BLOSSOM
Survivors in the areas hardest hit by Japan’s recent tsunami find the courage to revive and rebuild as cherry blossom season begins.

THE CITY DARK
THE CITY DARK is a feature documentary about the loss of night. After moving to NYC from rural Maine, filmmaker Ian Cheney asks a simple question – do we need the stars? – taking him from Brooklyn to Mauna Kea, Paris, and beyond. Exploring the threat of killer asteroids in Hawaii, tracking hatching turtles along the Florida coast, and rescuing injured birds on Chicago streets, Cheney unravels the myriad implications of a globe glittering with lights – including increased breast cancer rates from exposure to light at night, and a generation of kids without a glimpse of the universe above. Featuring stunning astrophotography and a cast of eclectic scientists, THE CITY DARK is the definitive story of light pollution and the disappearing stars.

THE ISLAND PRESIDENT
After bringing democracy to his country, President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, the lowest-lying country in the world, takes up the fight to keep his homeland from disappearing under the sea.

The film festival is taking place at Bayt Lothan and admission is free. For more information including the schedule visit the festival website [Here]

If you’ve never been to the Mutla Ridge up in the north of Kuwait you can now view it online in a 360 virtual tour. It was created by Alex, the same guy behind the Ahmadi Lights in 360 last month. [Link]

Thanks Alex

Khaled Al-Asfour (aka O-Zone) released the song above for Kuwait’s National Day called “Nothing Like Kuwait”. Not bad considering he’s just 15 years old and recorded this at home. [SoundCloud]

Members of Parliament have proposed increasing the minimum wage for Kuwaitis to KD1,500. According to Arabian Business that would be by far the highest in the world beating Luxembourg (which currently has the highest) by three times! That’s just mind-blowing. [Link]

[YouTube]

For those of you like me who were out of Kuwait during the holidays, we ended up missing the air show that was held on the Gulf Road. They painted the sky with the Kuwaiti flag colors and going by the pictures and videos it looked like an event that shouldn’t have been missed.

[YouTube]

Photos by Rampurple

Two guys have been experimenting for some time now trying to shoot aerial photography in Kuwait and they’ve recently cracked it and released their first video. They went to the Al-Farisi Kite Festival and using an RC helicopter were able to shoot the video above. It’s a really cool perspective. [YouTube]

Ahmadi currently has a beautiful light display up and one of my readers took it upon himself to create a 360 Virtual Tour of some of the displays. It’s a great way of experiencing Ahmadi at night without having to go there so check out the 360 shots [Here]

Thanks Alex

Photo by @lolalovepabulum

Big news for wildlife in Kuwait when K’S PATH, together with KOC, released the first mammal into the recently completed Abdaliya nature preserve. The animal in question, a long-eared hedgehog, was found in a garden near the city. Long-eared hedgehogs are solitary mammals that spend much of their lives alone, except during breeding season which occurs in March, just after hibernation. This year, we are planning to relocate many more hedgehogs and fox into the preserve, taking them from high-risk areas or from areas where they are abundant.

Our goal is to create an ecosystem thriving with native wildlife. In the coming months, we will begin efforts to release more hedgehogs as well as Ruppell’s Fox in to the preserve and will be installing nesting boxes and perches for native birds.

You can look forward to more updates on this project soon. Want to make a difference? Keep wildlife wild. Don’t hunt. All forms of hunting are illegal by Kuwait law. Illegal hunting (poaching) has caused the local extinction of many species, and we are constantly finding dead birds around Kuwait. Finally, keep up with or even contribute to our work by visiting K’S PATH on [Facebook]

Post by John Peaveler
Managing Director
Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (K’S PATH)