VOL. IV NO. 26, December 05-December 18, 2008

The Dubai International Film Festival

The Dubai International Film Festival has been highly praised as the Gulf region builds its fledgling film industry, notes The Hollywood Reporter. Events began on December 11, 2008, at the Madinet Jumeirah resort.

With an impressive list of industry players in attendance, the event played host to 450 registered guests, reports The Hollywood Reporter. These included actors Danny Glover, Salma Hayek, Nicolas Cage, Brendan Fraser, and Goldie Hawn. Key industry executives included Paramount director of co-productions and acquisitions Alexei Boltho, Patrick Wachsberger of Summit Entertainment, and international sales executive Vincent La Treis of Celluloid dreams.

The event was set up with state-of-the-art screening technology in a new facility, the Cinetech. Festival participants could view any of the 211 featured titles on demand from private booths, which also allowed them to communicate with the films' representatives.

Featured films came from 64 countries. Eighty of the films hailed from the Middle East, and thirty were from Africa. Notable titles included Oscar-nominated "The Wrestler," Morocco's "Casanegra," and "Chevolution," a daring documentary about Che Guavara.

The festival awards a number of honors, including the Muhr Awards for Excellence in Arab Cinema, Arabian Nights, and Gulf Voices, highlighting Gulf region filmmaking.

Arunrong Thirasak of the Thai company Phranakorn Films says, "I think that Dubai will be the new center of the Arab and African film industries."

Festival director AbdulHamid Juma told The Hollywood Reporter that Arab film has enormous potential, especially with better funding. Juma, who helped create the Dubai International Film Festival in 2004 and became Chairman of the event in 2006, has been named the third most influential figure in Arab cinema. He states that vehicles like the Dubai International Film Festival are helping the region develop a film industry.

Juma notes that there are many challenges to meet. The region needs studios, actors, production crew, and distribution companies.

Dubai film market director Ziad Yaghi explained the importance of Dubai in The Hollywood Reporter "Foreign buyers are very interested in Arabic cinema. [...] With the state of the economy, not everyone can travel to Europe or other destinations for film markets, so the market also serves as a platform for people to meet here."

The Dubai festival, however, is not the only game in town, comments The Times Online. The Cairo International Film Festival, the oldest film festival in the Middle East, said, "It all comes down to who has the most money."

"Locals don't care about the festival," said Cairo-based blogger Maryanne Gabbani. "It's about one-upmanship. "They all want to have these events and each one wants to do it better than the last."

In addition, Abu Dhabi plays host to the two-year-old Middle East International Film Festival, and Doha is the site of Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival. The Doha event was designed to help provide a post-9/11 bridge between the region and the US. There is also an international film festival in Marrakesh, founded seven years ago.

Chairman Abdulhamid Juma took over the festival after a bitter controversy involving founder Neil Stephenson, who is currently suing both Juma and Shivani Pandya, the festival's managing director. Juma has labeled Stephenson as a racist and anti-Arab.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bahrain's Sherezade Films (SF) is combining with Dubai-based Desert Door Productions and Kuwait Cable Vision in order to compete with the Western film industry.

CEO of KCV, Mohammed Kateeb, lauds the partnership as beneficial for the region's competitive edge as a promising new industry. "Creation of content is an important part of this cycle and, today, international entertainment and especially Western content represent a great percentage of media being delivered to the Middle East audience."

SF has also launched Sherezade Film Marketing in an effort to break into film distribution, beginning with the U.S. and Canada, ultimately moving into Europe. The company hopes to raise $100 million for P&A for theatrical releases, and plans to invest in completed films only as of yet.

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