The Abou Nuwas Festival showcases popular culture from the Arab and Islamicate world with 'LGBTQI+-friendly' themes and characters.
The first edition will deal with the history of film.
The highlighted films provide a diverse and perhaps surprising picture of the LGBTQI+ culture in this region from the earliest days of the regional cinema.
The festival aims at a general audience, people from migrant communities, some of whom remember the films from way back, and several LGBTQI+ communities. Hosting venues are the Filmhallen, Eye, various Public Libraries, Lanteren-Venster in Rotterdam and film houses in Assen and Groningen. Future editions will deal with literature and with visual arts.
The festival is named after Abou Nuwas, the eighth-century poet at the court of the Caliph of Baghdad whose oeuvre includes frank homoerotic poetry, and is still venerated as one of the greatest Arab poets.