The fifth edition of the Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival opens at NYU Abu Dhabi's Blue Hall from October 9 to 11, organised once again in partnership with the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi. This year's theme, "Mend," draws on the Arabic verb rammim, meaning to repair or restore, and sets the tone for a programme built around renewal rather than despair.
Artistic director Nezar Andary framed the choice bluntly: cinema itself will not heal the environment — people will. He said the festival deliberately avoids romanticising nature as some flawless, untouched ideal, arguing that mending is an ongoing act rather than a finished state.
The lineup leans on heavyweight names. Werner Herzog's "Ghost Elephants," made with National Geographic, gets its Gulf premiere at the festival. Sara Dosa's Oscar-nominated "Fire of Love" screens alongside her newer film "Time and Water." Björk narrates "Fungi: Web of Life," while a restored 4K print of Shyam Benegal's 1976 Indian classic "Manthan" brings an older environmental story back to the big screen. The five-part documentary series "Conservation Diaries" also premieres during the three-day run.
Since its founding, Al Sidr has drawn more than 5,000 attendees and engaged roughly 2,000 students from over 20 Abu Dhabi schools, building a steady audience of younger viewers around climate and ecological storytelling. Organisers are positioning this edition as a continuation of that work, mixing newer climate films with restored archival features to widen the public conversation about how people relate to the natural world around them.
With screenings running across three days at NYU Abu Dhabi, the festival keeps its format compact but internationally sourced, pulling in award-winning documentarians alongside archival restorations that rarely get a big-screen outing in the region.