One Last Thing: Butheina Kazim on hidden talents and the one thing she can't live without

Cinema Akil founder sits down with The National and answers quick-fire questions

Butheina Kazim says her hidden talent is doing a helium balloon voice singing Mohammed Abdu songs. Photo: Cinema Akil

Anyone with even a passing interest in independent cinema in the UAE knows the name Butheina Kazim. The Bahraini-Emirati entrepreneur is the founder of the first arthouse cinema in the region, Cinema Akil.

Originally a nomadic series of film nights across the country, since 2018 it has had a permanent home in a converted warehouse in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue, as well as a much more recent outpost at the 25hours Hotel Dubai One Central.

Kazim is part of the fabric of the Dubai – a fact cemented by her guest editorship of the first Louis Vuitton guide dedicated to the city in 2023. “My city is Dubai. And my life is cinema,” she told The National at the time.

What is your favourite time of day and why?

Sunset – the OG Lord’s filter and harbinger of the dark.

What is your favourite restaurant anywhere in the world?

The cafe in Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes.

When was the first time you realised your parents were human?

When I bled my mum with my pre-teen long nails and my dad cried at his mother’s deathbed.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Passport control officer at DXB airport.

Do you have any hidden talents?

I do an on-demand helium balloon voice singing Mohammed Abdu songs.

Your favourite book?

This is too agonising of a question. Though, I’ll never stop loving Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali.

What type of music can’t you stand?

Lazy use of onomatopoeia and unfinished lyrics.

What puts you in a bad mood?

Unsolicited advice.

What can you not live without?

Interesting people.

Dream dinner guests?

Stitch [from Lilo and Stitch], Gurgi [from The Black Cauldron], Batty [from Ferngully: The Last Rainforest] and all the Curious Oysters [from Alice in Wonderland].

Sitting on the sofa or out with friends?

Both in the same day, multiple times, at different times of day.

What smell takes you straight back to childhood?

Lily of the Valley and Mastik.

What food takes you back to childhood?

Cerelac and Rasgulla... separately.

Which city do you love but would hate to live in?

I have two. Delhi and Amman.

Can you play a musical instrument?

No. Music was banned at our school after the principal became religiously conservative.

Have you ever been on a motorcycle?

Yes.

Any words to live by?

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live” - Joan Didion

Biggest pet peeve?

Nosiness.

Do you believe in aliens?

Yes, along with the djinns and warawaras.

What is your favourite Arabic word?

Ya’ni [editor’s note: hard to translate but used similarly to "like" in English]

The most niche thing you watch on YouTube?

Recently, how-to-videos on making organic pools in the English countryside by retired BBC videographer David Pagan Butler… and vintage Kuwaiti music videos.

How do you take your tea?

Fragrant, sweet, caffeinated.

What makes you cry?

Stagnancy, apathy, bad taste.

What do social algorithms think you’re interested in?

Chili oil, baby content and vinyls.

TikTok or Instagram?

TikTok is the city I love but can’t live in.

What is it about you that would surprise people?

My unrequited love of sardines.

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

This morning, I used a Dyson Airwrap.