Doha Film Institute (DFI) announced two new festivals at the Cannes film festival on Saturday. The Qumra Film Festival, to be held from March next year, will focus on works by first and second-time filmmakers while the Ajyal Film Festival, to launch in November this year, will focus on community-based events that will bring together families and educators.
“Over the last four years, our community-based programming has been extremely popular among the residents of Doha,” said Abdul Aziz Al Khater, CEO of DFI. “We want to harness the momentum we’ve generated there and continue developing film appreciation in Qatar. At the same time, the Institute has decided to focus on emerging filmmakers and expand its competitions to include films from around the world. The best path to achieving our goals is to build two separate film festivals.”
The DFI recently ended it’s ties with Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Enterprises, effectively bringing the curtains downs on the four-year-old Doha Tribeca Film Festival.
The Qumra Film Festival, Doha, is committed to help the visions of upcoming directors and assist them in bringing their projects to fruition, the DFI added in a release. International competitions for first- and second-time filmmakers are at the heart of the eight-day festival. Awards will be decided by international juries in feature-length and short film categories, including Made in Qatar.
Industry Days will include master classes, workshops, panels and the Doha Projects initiative, which puts together DFI grant recipients with producers and key players from the film industry. Exhibitions and musical performances complement the film programme throughout the festival.
