ABU DHABI, 14th October, 2026 (WAM) -- Held under the theme Mend and organised in collaboration with the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD), Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival opened on 8 October at Zayed National Museum and continued at Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi and The Arts Centre at NYU Abu Dhabi, three institutions on Saadiyat Island. Its programme set films from Venice, Sundance, the Berlinale and Cannes Classics beside work made in the UAE.
The fifth edition ended on Sunday 11 October with an evening given to water. The historian Dr. Ahmed Yaqoub AlMaazmi spoke on water and the UAE; João Gonzalez’s Oscar-nominated Ice Merchants followed; Sara Dosa’s Time and Water, her elegy for Iceland’s glaciers, closed the night.
Dr. Nezar Andary, the festival’s Artistic Director, said, “We called this edition Mend; in Arabic, رَمِّم, the word we use when we restore a house or a film,” Dr. Andary said. “From the same root comes رَميم, the bone worn to dust. Our language keeps the broken thing inside the word for its repair.”
“This is not a festival of reassurance,” he said. “Awareness is not enough; we have been aware for decades, and the water kept warming. Awareness tells you something is happening. Intimacy makes you answerable to it. You do not mend what you know about; you mend what you are close to.”
Werner Herzog’s Ghost Elephants, which premiered at Venice in 2025 as Herzog received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, had its Gulf premiere on the opening night at NYU Abu Dhabi; it follows National Geographic Explorer Steve Boyes into Angola in search of an elusive herd.
Sara Dosa anchored the programme with two films: the Oscar-nominated Fire of Love, on two volcanologists who loved each other and the fire that took them, and Time and Water, which premiered at Sundance in 2026.
Shyam Benegal’s Manthan (1976), India’s first crowdfunded film, was paid for by 500,000 dairy farmers at two rupees each. It returned in the 4K restoration that premiered at Cannes Classics in 2024, with a talk by the filmmaker Surabhi Sharma, Associate Dean for the Arts and Creative Practices at NYU Abu Dhabi, placing it in its history.
Evgenia Arbugaeva’s Chuuraa, on what thawing permafrost releases, came from its world premiere at Berlinale Shorts 2026. Sofie Benoot’s Apple Cider Vinegar read the planet’s history in its stones; Ali Alsheikh Khedr’s Seeds of Dignity followed the farmers who save heirloom seeds in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Fungi: Web of Life, narrated by Björk, led a family afternoon of animation.
The festival opened at Zayed National Museum with an address by the museum’s Director, Dr. Peter Magee, and Lina Zilinskaite’s A Bronze Age Boat Sails Again. At Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, Time and Water screened before a tour led by Brigitte Howarth, the museum’s Curator of Entomology. Dima Al Srouri, founder of MycoSphere, lectured on fungi; her installation in fungal yarn, a living material, accompanied the festival. On the final afternoon, a panel held with Emirates Nature–WWF and EAD asked plainly what mending the UAE needs, with Arabella Willing, Head of Conservation Outreach at Emirates Nature–WWF, Rasna Al-Khamis and Swamiti Kakembo.
Sara Dosa, whose Fire of Love won the Directors Guild of America Award for documentary, came to Abu Dhabi to lead a masterclass and on the closing night, Dr. Ahmed Yaqoub AlMaazmi, Assistant Professor of History at NYU Abu Dhabi, spoke on water and the UAE: how it shaped the region’s history and communities, and tied them to the wider world. He reads Arabia’s past from the water, through the monsoon and the western Indian Ocean.
Partners
Al Sidr is organised in collaboration with the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi and hosted by NYU Abu Dhabi, with the participation of Emirates Nature–WWF and Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. Zayed National Museum hosted the opening screening, and Lebanon’s REEF Film Festival presented Seeds of Dignity.
As in previous years, a selection of films and activities will now travel to schools across Abu Dhabi. At the opening, Dr. Andary named what the festival wants next: “We want company; this should not be the only environmental film festival in the country. We want the next Conservation Diaries made by the young people in this room. And we want to be measured not by how many came, but by what you go home and look after.”
The strong response to the fifth edition builds on the festival’s continued growth since its launch in 2020. Across previous editions, Al Sidr has welcomed more than 5,000 attendees and engaged approximately 2,000 students from more than 20 schools across Abu Dhabi.