UAE | Media
Emirati girls win top award at documentary film contest
The United Arab Emirates first Documentary Film Competition held its awards ceremony Thursday night in the presence of an international audience.
- By Marten Youssef, Staff Reporter
- Published: 20:44 May 23, 2008
Abu Dhabi: The United Arab Emirates first Documentary Film Competition held its awards ceremony Thursday night in the presence of an international audience.
The competition, titled "Document your talent, get inspired by your homeland," was first launched on March 27, 2008 by Anasy Media Production and Sama Dubai TV and gathered an international judging panel. Amongst the panelists were actor and filmmaker Danny Glover and Al Jazeera's Riz Khan. The judges sorted through more than 100 documentaries that were submitted.
"This celebration holds a special significance for me personally as I am the proud father of the founder of Anasy," Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, said in opening remarks.
The awards were divided into two categories: Shaikh Zayed film and any other category of free choice.
The best documentary film award in the Shaikh Zayed category went to a group of 20-year-old Emirati girls from Zayed University who produced a film Dar Zayed: Hidden Treasures which tied with Capture of the Heart. "Dar Zayed is essentially about our civilisation. The part that still gets me is that there is so much here to be discovered and Shaikh Zayed knew that, but so many of our people forget to look at our rich history. I really hope this film will shed some light on this legacy left to us by Shaikh Zayed," 20-year-old Maitha Al Mahrabi. director of the film told Gulf News.
In the general category there were three awards. The bronze went to Al Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness," for exploring the impact of medieval Islam's spiritual leader. The silver award went to Guevara 'ash, which documents the ties between former Egyptian president Jamal Abdul Nasser's reign and Argentinian rebel Ernesto Che Guevara. The gold award went to Dinner with the President, for an in-depth interview with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.
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