With Sharjah declared the World Book Capital for 2019, SIFF 2019 was themed around books too! We created a magical fairy-tale inspired event from Children’s Books that were adapted into movies!

The creative concept of the Sharjah International Film Festival event was themed around famous children’s books like Harry Potter, Charlie, and the Chocolate Factory, Mary Poppins, Aladdin, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, to name a few.

Mosaic Live used the most easily recognizable elements from these movies to create an immersive experience for the guests. For example, one of the biggest showstoppers was the replica of the Hogwarts Express Train, spanning over 45 meters long and 5 meters high, parked inside the hall. Each one of the three train coaches served as a workshop room. We also incorporated hidden speakers on the train tracks so that when you stood beside the train, you would hear the audio of a train approaching & see the smoke coming out of its engine too!

Similarly, the Hobbit house was the Media room, the Mary Poppins house was the entrance to the mini cinema, and the Rapunzel tower was the kids play area, designed using her hair that came out of the tower to twirl and form the children’s fun jumping ball pit!

This year, the event layout was completely different, and the central feature was the Charlie and the Chocolate factory designed seating space. The dragon boat made of ‘jelly’ served as the seating area with the surrounding decor being the chocolate factory’s green landscape. Just like the movie, we had a chocolate river running through the entire area, candy canes growing out of the ground & various candies spread everywhere. Huge candied mushrooms stood 4 meters tall at the center, serving as a very unique event centerpiece. Guests were able to sit on the layered mounds made of AstroTurf too!

We also added an Arabic touch with Aladdin’s marketplace themed food & beverage area, complete with arabesque elements of wind towers, palm trees, and mashrabiya windows that completed the look & feel of the Arabian market.

H.E. Shaikha Jawaher Al Qassimi, Director of Funn, usually presents her keynote at the opening ceremony and this year, we used technology that has never been used in the region before! We used a holographic projection display on a material called scrim that holds projection content, and yet it allows the audience to see through it. H.E. Shaikha Jawaher stood behind the scrim and delivered her keynote through an interactive hologram projection that changed her environment entirely depending on the topic of her speech. Post the keynote, we dropped the scrim using a kabuki system to enlarge & reveal the rest of the stage for other speakers & awards.

We also had an array of activities to keep the kids entertained, and one of them was a 360-degree video booth where the kids stood in the center and a rotating camera captured the kids using the entire event as the backdrop! Other activities included a VR station, the popcorn blower machine, digital Pictionary & arts and craft.

We welcomed over 3,000 attendees on a daily, during the 6-day festival. Schools attended in the morning, while the general public and families attended at night. This year, we screened over 132 films from 39 different countries! Out of which, 105 films were premiered at the festival! We are proud to be one of the leading event management companies in Dubai.

Ultimately, our objective was for the children to be amazed and want to spend time within the event zone, learning more about the film with every activity they participated in. We designed the experience in a way that education and entertainment came together in the form of edutainment and children of all ages felt inspired to become future filmmakers after visiting the event.

You can also check out SIFF 2018 Video – Click here

Cheers!!