Last month, six-time Academy Award nominee Jim Sheridan and festival director Zhara Moufid’s second Dublin Arabic Film Festival (DAFF) took place at the Irish Film Institute (IFI), presented by Dubai Duty Free. “Movies have a great way to make people really feel something and to have great empathy with other cultures,” says Sheridan. “For my part, I want to show Irish audiences a different side of Arab life; Hollywood always casts Arabs as terrorists in movies, they are always ‘the bad guys’! There is a much bigger and more interesting story to be told with some fabulous Arab film makers out there right now.”