Today the Doha Film Institute announced the lineup for the second annual Doha Tribeca Film Festival, and it looks likely to be a very impressive five days in October with four world premieres, Arab film and Arab short film competitions and a packed World Cinema programme.
Rachid Bouchareb’s Outside the Law is set to open the festival on the 26th of October with Justin Chadwick’s The First Grader chosen as the film to close the event. A highlight of the festival is Ahmed Ahmed’s documentary Just Like Us, and we were able to sit down with the comedian to talk about his film, the festival and his future plans and that interview will appear on the site in due course.
We also hope to be attending the festival in October so we’ll be well placed to bring you the news and reviews from this exemplary event.
Here are the full details of the programme,
This year’s Festival features works from both emerging and established directors with genres including comedies, family-oriented films, epics, political biopics, thrillers and documentaries. The DTFF programme will be presented in four distinctive categories: the Arab Film Competition, World Panorama, Special Screenings and the Arab Short Film Competition. Ten films will participate in the Arab Film Competition, four of which are World Premieres: Grandma, A Thousand Times by Mahmoud Kaabour, Hawi by Ibrahim El Batout, Man Without a Cellphone by Sameh Zoabi and The Mountain by Ghassan Salhab.
Other programme highlights include Julian Schnabel’s Miral, starring Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire), Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe, starring Gemma Arterton (Prince of Persia), Aktan Abdykalykov’s The Light Thief, Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s documentary The Two Escobars, Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, Randall Wallace’s Secretariat, Jasmila Zbanic ‘s On the Path, Robert Redford’s The Conspirator and Egyptian-American comedian Ahmed Ahmed’s directorial debut with the documentary Just Like Us.
The newly added Arab Film Competition will award prizes for Best Arab Film and Best Arab Filmmaker. The Festival will also feature two audience awards, one for Best Narrative Film and the other for Best Documentary Film. Each category features prizes of USD 100,000 each. Also new this year is the USD 10,000 prize for Best Arab Short Film, bringing the total cash prizes monies to USD 410,000.
As Doha Film Institute’s (DFI) annual celebration of all things film, DTFF is a community-minded, five-day event that showcases the best of Arab and international films, and has a full program of festival activities to engage the community, industry and filmmakers. Events include panel discussions, informal VIP events, audience-interactive Q & A’s, a Family Day with live entertainment, and a multimedia exhibit dedicated to cinema figures, soon to be unveiled at DTFF’s new hub, Katara, the Cultural Village, situated on the eastern coast of Doha.
To find out more click here to go to the DFI’s festival homepage.
