The Fazaa mobile application is a portable charging and power bank rental service that comes in handy when your device’s battery has run low.
Meaning “help” in Saudi slang, Fazaa allows you to check the location of the company’s booths and the availability of power banks.
Once you find it, the application will ask you to scan a QR code to rent a power bank or allow you to charge your device in a slot.
This service is such a lifesaver. I was out with friends one night and forgot to take my portable charger with me. With no one able to help, I found a Fazaa station at a restaurant and was able to charge my phone in one of the slots.
The station has very good security and users can be assured that their phones are safe.
Fazaa is available for download on Google Play, App Store, and Huawei’s AppGallery.
The rental stations are ready for use round-the-clock across the Kingdom, including shopping malls, restaurants, cafes, parks, and other public places.
Fazaa uses state-of-the-art power banks that are safe, and provides different types of charging cables including Apple Lightning, MicroUSB and Type-C. These devices are powerful and will charge your mobile in no time.
The first 15 minutes, once a day, are free of charge. After that, a fee of SR15 ($4) is required every 24 hours.
What We Are Buying Today: Fazaa
https://arab.news/vkqvf
What We Are Buying Today: Fazaa
International Prize for Arabic Fiction announces 2025 longlist
DUBAI: The longlist for the 2025 International Prize for Arabic Fiction has been revealed, with 16 novels in the running for the $50,000 award, sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre.
While works from Bahrain and Mauritania have made the list for the first time, other nominated novels come from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Iraq and the UAE.
The longlist has been chosen from a total of 124 submissions by a panel of five judges chaired by Egyptian academic Mona Baker. Joining her on the panel are Moroccan academic and critic Said Bengrad, Emirati critic and academic Maryam Al-Hashimi, Lebanese researcher and academic Bilal Orfali, and Finnish translator Sampsa Peltonen.
In a statement, Baker said, “This year’s longlist is remarkable in its diversity of both theme and literary form. Some novels address women’s struggles to achieve their dreams in a patriarchal society that prevents them from living fulfilled lives. Others offer a nuanced portrait of religious and sectarian worlds, where extremism and dogma contrast with human empathy and understanding.
“There are a number of historical novels on the list which deal with both the recent and more distant past, such as the Abbasid era, or the Inquisition and persecution of Muslims in Andalusia. There are also semi-autobiographical books, and others which read like detective stories.
“Repressive regimes and their power to crush the hopes and lives of ordinary people are also explored; some novelists paint a stark picture of this reality, while others employ sarcasm and humour, rendering these difficult topics more accessible for the reader.”
The 2025 International Prize for Arabic Fiction longlist:
Aqeel Almusawi’s “The Weepers” (Bahrain)
Inam Bioud’s “Houwariya” (Algeria)
Rashid Al-Daif’s “What Zeina Saw and What She Didn’t” (Lebanon)
Ahmed Fal Al-Din’s “Danshmand” (Mauritania)
Jan Dost’s “The French Prisoner” (Syria)
Sausan Jamil Hasan’s “Heiress of the Keys” (Syria)
Iman Humaydan’s “Songs for the Darkness” (Lebanon)
Azher Jirjees “The Valley of the Butterflies” (Iraq)
Hasan Kamal’s “The Stolen Novel” (Egypt)
Taissier Khalaf’s “The Andalusian Messiah” (Syria)
Ahmed Al-Malawany’s “Happy Dreams” (Egypt)
Mohamed Samir Nada’s “The Prayer of Anxiety” (Egypt)
Nadia Najar’s “The Touch of Light” (United Arab Emirates)
Haneen Al-Sayegh’s “The Women’s Charter” (Lebanon)
Sumar Shihada’s “My Life Has Just Begun” (Syria)
Ayman Ragab Taher’s “The Lamplighter” (Egypt)
Saudi stars shine at Ivana Chubbuck’s Riyadh workshop
DUBAI: Saudi actresses Sumaya Rida, Adwa Bader and Mila Al-Zahrani participated in a workshop hosted by the California-based drama school Ivana Chubbuck Studio in Riyadh.
The workshop is part of the Ministry of Culture and the Film Commission’s Filmmakers Program, which runs until the end of January.
Rida, known for her breakout television roles in “Another Planet” and “Boxing Girls” as well as her big-screen appearances in “Junoon” and “Roll’em” — among the first films to premiere in the Kingdom after cinemas reopened — took to Instagram to share behind-the-scenes moments from the workshop with her colleagues.
She also shared a clip of herself with Zahrani and later posted an Instagram Story featuring both of them, captioning it, “My scene partner.”
Ivana Chubbuck, founder and director of the studio, is a US acting coach and creator of the widely adopted Chubbuck Technique, known for its role in Oscar-winning and nominated performances.
She heads the drama school in Los Angeles and conducts acting workshops worldwide.
Chubbuck has worked with renowned actors such as Charlize Theron, Brad Pitt, Sylvester Stallone, Terrence Howard, James Franco, Jake Gyllenhaal, Elisabeth Shue, Catherine Keener, Halle Berry, and Jared Leto, among others.
She is also the author of the best-selling book “The Power of the Actor,” published by Penguin Books’ Gotham division, which has been translated into 20 languages.
Chubbuck’s Riyadh workshop was also attended by Saudi actor and comedian Fahad Albutairi, who shared a carousel of images from the event on Instagram. Among the pictures was a signed note from Chubbuck that read: “Fahad, you are so talented and (I) look forward to continuing our journey together.”
The attendees received a certificate of participation after the workshop, which Albutairi also posted on his Instagram.
The Filmmakers Program collaborates with several international film universities and institutes to provide training opportunities and workshops for both amateur and professional filmmakers in the Kingdom.
Review: Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha writes against erasure, destruction
JEDDAH: “Every child in Gaza is me,” writes Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha in the creed-like opening of “Forest of Noise,” setting the tone for the poems to come and establishing his profound connection to his people and Palestine.
The poems within the slim but impactful volume by the Palestine Book Award-winning poet blend personal narratives with the broader documentation of life under Israeli occupation, siege, and bombardment in Gaza.
Released amidst one of the most turbulent periods in recent Palestinian history, Abu Toha uses the art form to not only capture personal memory, but to document Israel’s atrocities committed against Palestinians and the resilience of the people living in a continuous state of emergency.
Written in clear, simple language that often evokes visceral, painful imagery, his poetry oscillates between moments of loss, destruction, and survival, and glimpses of peace that seem fantastical in their rarity.
In “Palestinian Village,” Abu Toha imagines a peaceful scene “where a canary never tires of singing” that feels like a distant memory or a dream in stark contrast to the harrowing reality on the ground. The poem, like others in the collection, is a reminder of the cultural and natural heritage that Palestinians are fighting to preserve amid what Amnesty International, as well as some regional states, have termed a genocide.
In “On Your Knees” he powerfully uses repetition of the line “on your knees!” to document the humiliating and horrifying experience of being abducted by Israeli forces as he attempted to cross the Rafah border with his family in November 2023.
Abu Toha resists physical subjugation with poetry as a form of resistance and memory — asserting the Palestinian self and narrative and highlighting the power of art to fight back against erasure.
In “After Allen Ginsberg,” the Palestinian poet draws from the American’s iconic work “Howl,” writing:
“I saw the best brains of my generation
protruding from their slashed heads.”
By adopting Ginsberg's confrontational style, Abu Toha’s unrestrained voice laments and protests Israel's ongoing assault that has claimed the lives of thousands of children, women, and men.
The poet’s unwavering voice in “Forest of Noise” challenges readers to see Gaza not as a distant conflict but as a human tragedy that demands attention.
Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch talk ‘The Day of the Jackal’
- The series, streaming on OSN+, has been renewed for a second season
DUBAI: “The Day of the Jackal” — a 10-episode series written by Ronan Bennett available to stream in the Middle East on OSN+ — is a contemporary reimagining of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel and the famed 1973 film, directed by Fred Zinnemann.
UK film star Eddie Redmayne plays the titular Jackal, an extremely thorough and detail-oriented British assassin, often taking on intricate disguises and speaking several languages to get the job done.
“One of the thrills of this experience for me was that the Jackal kind of is an actor. And particularly in Ronan’s version of him now, he’s quite obsessive, and he loves the process.
“And so, the fact that he’s an artist, and he preps the prosthetics himself and he mimics the languages … The whole experience was a sort of actor’s playground, really. And I loved that element of it,” Redmayne told Arab News.
“What I found intriguing about the part was, normally, when I’m playing a part, I kind of reach out to the character, and there were many moments in this in which I was going, ‘OK, so if this guy’s an actor, and he’s quite a proficient actor, how would I navigate my way through this situation? If I had these formidable assassin skills, if I had to lie horrifically to my wife, if I had to manipulate things.’
“So, what’s odd is, of all the characters I played, much more so I found it was about trying to bring that character to me, rather than reaching out to him, which was helped by the fact that it’s the first character I played in 25 years in which he wears contemporary clothes. I’ve been stuck in tweeds and stiff collars. So, that was fun,” he said.
Starring alongside Redmayne is Lashana Lynch, who plays Bianca, an intelligence officer with firearms expertise and a similarly obsessive approach to her work.
The thrilling series follows a tense cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, with Bianca hot on the heels of the Jackal, who is leaving a trail of bodies in his wake as he evades authorities.
The show traces an uncanny parallel between the two characters. They both have family lives, they are both exacting and skillful at their jobs, but chaos follows wherever they go, often with deadly consequences.
“For me as an actor, it was exciting to see a man and a woman in those positions. I’m very used to the films that I have come across over the years, seeing two men in those positions, and everyone being very excited that one’s going to oscillate between being good and evil,” Lynch said.
“Having a woman being potentially evil is really exciting because it breaks the parameters in a way that kind of re-educates the industry to continue to stay open minded with female characters, and that’s kind of what I’m all about. And to have a team like this that celebrated that and did it within the genre of espionage is special and very new for the kind of TV that I’m used to watching,” Lynch said.
Saudi couturier Mohammed Ashi dresses stars at the Golden Globes
DUBAI: Saudi couturier Mohammed Ashi dressed three stars at Sunday night’s Golden Globes in Hollywood, with Mindy Kaling, Kristen Bell and Ari Graynor showing off looks by the Paris-based designer.
Kaling showed off a gold column gown from Ashi Studio, hailing from the label’s Spring/Summer 2024 couture collection.
The first designer from the Gulf to take part in Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, Ashi also dressed Graynor in a risque look complete with cutouts across the bodice. The all-black gown was plucked from his label’s Fall/Winter 2023 couture collection.
For her part, nominee Bell shimmered in a gold, beaded Ashi Studio gown that boasted a peplum and rounded neckline.
With some of Hollywood's most fashion-forward stars up for awards this year, it's going to be an eventful season. The Golden Globes gets it all started, with stars — and their stylists — marking their territory at one of Hollywood's splashiest events, the Associated Press reported.
“Wicked” star Ariana Grande showed off a pale yellow Givenchy haute couture look. The gown was in crafted in silk with a hand-beaded bodice — a vintage 1966 gown from what the designer calls the Audrey Hepburn era of Givenchy.
Cate Blanchett looked like an awards statue come to life in a glistening gold gown with a ruched top by Louis Vuitton — one that she also wore at the Cannes Film Festival. New gold stones were added to the gown, designed by Nicholas Ghesquière, to freshen the look.
Where Blanchett glistened in gold, Nicole Kidman sparkled in silver, in a daring, one-shoulder backless Balenciaga gown. The “Babygirl” star polished off the look with a chic, voluminous half-ponytail.
Globes host Nikki Glaser zeroed right in on Timothee Chalamet, one of the hottest stars in Hollywood, in her monologue, telling him: “You have the most gorgeous eyelashes on your upper lip.” As for the clothes on his body, Chalamet went more traditional than other recent trips to the carpet, wearing a sleek Tom Ford black suit with embellished jacket, a white shirt and a blue scarf tossed around his neck (or was it a tie?).
Always a winner on the red carpet, actress Zendaya provided yet another high fashion moment at the Golden Globes in a custom Louis Vuitton ballgown paired with Bulgari jewelry.
