Just months after Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) organisers announced the event will not take place in 2018, a festival dedicated to films from the region has been revealed in Paris.
Festival Des Cinemas Arabes, which kicked off on June 28 in Institute du Monde Arab (Institute of the Arab World), is an 11-day event that aims to showcase over 80 Arab documentaries and short and feature films of all genres.
It is the first of its kind in Paris following the scrapping of the last Biennale des Cinéma Arabes in 2006.
In celebration of Saudi Arabia’s recent lifting of cinema bans, the event is hosting a dedicated section to films from the kingdom.
The festival is chaired by Palestinian actress and director Hiam Abbass and was inaugurated by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki and her critically-acclaimed political drama Capernaum, which revolves around child poverty in Beirut, telling the story of an angry boy who sues his parents for bringing him into hopeless circumstances.
A jury consisting of Moroccan director and actor Faouzi Bensaïdi, Saudi actress Fatima Al-Banawi and Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy will head the competitive line-up, which features Palestinian director Muayad Alayan’s The Reports on Sarah and Salim and Syrian filmmaker Gaya Jiji’s My Favorite Fabric.
As for DIFF, it is set to return in 2019 for its 15th edition with a ‘new approach’, organisers said.
Follow us on
