Beyond Babel: Manchester's multilingual film festival returns

Sridevi in English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, 2012)

The Beyond Babel Film Festival opens on the 6th February with a screening of Franco-Algerian ‘reverse immigrant comedy’ Né quelque part, or Homeland. Director Mohamed Hamidi tells the story of Farid, a French-born law student who finds himself having to travel to his father’s homeland of Algeria.

Having never so much as visited Algeria, and being far from fluent in Arabic, Farid’s family volunteer to be his guide to local customs, but his cousin (played by the hugely popular comedian Jamel Debbouze) proves to be a thorn in his side.

Ne quelque part proves to be a voyage of discovery, of family reunions and reflections on personal sacrifice, which skilfully treads the line between laugh-out-loud comedy and insightful drama.  

After the film, FLAME (Film Language and Media In Education) founder Dr Isabelle Vanderschelden will lead a Q&A.

On the 7th, we head to Deansgate’s Instituto Cervantes for a showing of El futuro perfecto, a “modestly scaled character study” of a recent émigré to Argentina who works in a grocery store to pay for Spanish lessons. German-born writer and director Nele Wohlatz captures the immigrant experience with her own insight.

Described as a deadpan comedy by the Hollywood Reporter, the film plays on the stiff and affected role-playing exercises of beginner’s language classes, but as Xiaobin picks up the language, she also picks up a newfound confidence in her unfamiliar surroundings.

While Xiaobin’s mother-tongue doesn’t operate in terms of tenses, the discovery of the future perfect tense in Spanish leads her to ponder the possibilities of her own future.

After the film, Manchester Met’s Spanish Section lead Dr Carmen Herrero will lead a Q&A.

The third and final screening of the season is of English Vinglish, which received a standing ovation at its Toronto International Film Festival debut and proved to be a triumphant comeback for superstar of Indian cinema Sridevi after a 15 year hiatus.

Sridevi plays Shashi, a mother with a catering business whose family mock her for her inability to speak English. When a family wedding takes her to New York, she faces a series of humiliations, which inspire her to take English lessons. There she meets a diverse range of characters who embrace her for her charm (and her cooking skills.)

Director Gauri Shinde called the film a “way of saying sorry and thank you” to her mother, and “a tribute to women.”

The film will be followed by a Q&A session by University of Manchester’s Sheraz Ali.

Beyond Babel is brought to you by Manchester Met’s Film, Languages and Media in Education group (FLAME) and Research in Arts and Humanities, as well as Instituto Cervantes and the Film in Language Teaching Association (FILTA).

All the screenings will be subtitled. For more information on the Beyond Babel Film Festival and other upcoming Research in Arts and Humanities events, see here. 

For any queries, contact a.turbine@mmu.ac.uk.