A Red Carpet Evening

What a wonderful evening! I went directly from work to the other apartment building that houses UC-Q staff with Jackie, another staff member. From there we joined several members of the staff of College of the North Atlantic-Qatar in cars that took us down to the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) where the opening night of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival was being held. The Middle East premiere of "Amelia" was the feature event, and it was being shown on a huge outdoor screen on the amazingly beautiful grounds of the museum. We arrived quite early - before 5:00 - and the movie was not to start until 8:00. We walked around the grounds a bit before we found seats. The grounds are absolutely gorgeous with rows of palm trees and these amazing, enormous pots with lighted up, very colourful, sculptured (fake) flowers that moved in the wind - they were easily 20 feet high. There were 3,000 folding festival height sling chairs set up - they were so comfortable and spaced far apart so you could walk between the rows very easily and without stepping on people's toes. The Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra performed, and it was so beautiful to listen to the music on this lovely warm evening with a gentle breeze coming off the Gulf. A theatre group did a performance depicting the history of Qatar with traditional music and dancing. On the big screens on either side of the stage we were treated to watching the arrival of the stars and the film directors and producers on the red carpet which as at the entrance to the museum. There must have been some event inside for the VIPs. The movie was pretty good, directed by a Middle Eastern woman. After the movie there were fireworks - and Doha does it big time! They lasted about 20 minutes and each one was better than the last.

Sleep tight!