Faisal Al Zaabi is a firm believer in following your dreams. After years of working towards a career in a field of little appeal to him, the 23-year-old is now on the path to achieving his goal – setting up an independent cinema.He studied for three years at Paris Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, before deciding that a career in finance was not for him. “You’re brought up to think you’re a worker in society and you don’t do what you want to do, you do what other people want you to do,” he says. “Over time, I realised I could do whatever I wanted to do – I left Sorbonne. I spoke to my dada afterwards; he had encouraging words and suddenly realised I had a passion.” Al Zaabi’s passion was film and theatre. He enrolled on a media course at Zayed University and, after networking, got a call from an Abu Dhabi theatre group that specialises in reviving and reworking old works, who wanted him to join them. “I thought, seeing as I had a new fresh direction in life, I should be involved in as many things as possible.” He acted in his first Resuscitation Theatre play, The Cocktail Party, in 2011, and has since gone on to produce and direct a number of shows. “In 15 years, I want Resuscitation Theatre to be a statement of the culture scene in Abu Dhabi; for it to become part of the cultural footprint in the city, alongside the big stuff.” While he continues to study, his goal is to set up an independent cinema, where fans can go without being distracted, and watch films that are free from locally imposed cuts. “I’ve been working on this project for the past three months. It seems possible; it just needs a lot of help. It needs a lot of convincing and a lot of legwork and financiers. It seems there are enough people that actually care about cinema that want to go to this.”
