''City of Life'' is a 2009

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

Emirati film written, directed, and produced by

Ali F. Mostafa Ali F. Mostafa (born Ali Faisal Mostafa Bin Abdullatif on 25 September 1981) is a British- Emirati filmmaker, director and producer who is credited as the director of the first Emirati feature-film '' City of Life'' (2009). He is a graduate of L ...

. Set in the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

, the film revolves around three parallel lives, amongst many cultures in one city, namely,

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

Production

Background

According to the director

, the inspiration for producing ''City of Life'' came from his frustration of people comparing Dubai to a

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney in ...

. According to the director, "Most of them take one look at the glitzy buildings and assume it’s an artificial place. My film has none of that. It has real people with real problems. Like any other city in the world, my film shows both the positives and the negatives."

Reception

Box office

According to data produced by Italia Film International the movie ranked second in the local box office and successfully made over 500,000

dirhams The dirham, dirhem or dirhm ( ar, درهم) is a silver unit of currency historically and currently used by several Arab and Arab influenced states. The term has also been used as a related unit of mass. Unit of mass The dirham was a un ...

in its first weekend.

Cast

Alexandra Maria Lara Alexandra Maria Lara (''née'' Plătăreanu; 12 November 1978) is a Romanian-German actress who has appeared in ''Downfall (2004 film), Downfall'' (2004), ''Control (2007 film), Control'' (2007), ''Youth Without Youth (film), Youth Without You ...

as Natalia Moldovan *

Sonu Sood Sonu Sood (born 30 July 1973) is an Indian actor, film producer, model, humanitarian, and philanthropist who works predominantly in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films. In 2009, he received the Andhra Pradesh State Nandi Award for Best Vill ...

as Basu/Peter Patel *Saoud Al Kaabi as Faisal * Narcy as Khalfan * Susan George as Constance Bateman *

Jason Flemyng Jason Iain Flemyng''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 25 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for roles in British films such as ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' (1998) ...

as Guy Berger *

Natalie Dormer Natalie Dormer (born 11 February 1982)Ahmed Ahmed Ahmed Ahmed ( ar, أحمد أحمد), (; born June 27, 1970) is an Egyptian-American actor and comedian. Early life Ahmed Ahmed was born in Helwan, Egypt. His family moved to the United States when he was one month old and he grew up in Rivers ...

as Nasser *Habib Ghuloom as Faisal's Father * Jaaved Jaffrey as Suresh Khan *David Chant as Senior Flight Officer

References

External links

* * 2009 films 2000s Arabic-language films 2000s English-language films 2000s Hindi-language films Films set in Dubai Films shot in Dubai 2009 drama films Emirati multilingual films 2009 multilingual films Films directed by Ali F. Mostafa {{2000s-drama-film-stub