A complied photo to the filmmakers who their film projects were granted AFAC grants on December 6 – Photo courtesy of AFAC official website
CAIRO – 10 December 2017: The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) selected 28 new film projects to receive grants from its General Grants program for Cinema for the year 2017. The total grants amount to $493,000.
The AFAC received 325 film projects in 2017, ranging from long feature movies and documentaries to short and experimental movies. The AFAC held two separate jury committees. The first was for short film projects and the second was for feature movies projects.
The cinema committees in general contain experts and film professionals who come from diverse backgrounds and nationalities.
The short films jury includes Palestinian-Jordanian filmmaker Yahya Abdallah, Lebanese filmmaker Sabine El Chamaa and Egyptian Coordinator of film programs and cultural art projects Ali El Adawi.
The feature movies jury contains Syrian filmmaker Ossama Mohammed, Moroccan director, writer and comic book creator Hicham Lasri, and Tunisian director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania.
“We have a common feeling that an extra cognitive experience inhabits us today after an intense journey into the spiritual and aesthetic world of the cinematic works and cinematic texts hailing from Arab countries. The projects presented to AFAC’s Cinema grant 2017 almost converge in their insistence on addressing the psychological, political, and historical challenges that is endemic to the individual and to cultural society. In this sense, the cultural transcends the political and refutes its compromises; the humane and the aesthetical are above all authority and placed first in line,” a statement issued by AFAC mentioned.
The AFAC added that the vast number of applications in comparison to the available funds put the jury in painful moments of relinquishing the opportunity for projects that really deserve it because others deserve more. “We recognize that AFAC’s grant today provides an additional lung for filmmakers trying out freedom outside of set styles, and we recognize the authority of the market which compels us to push AFAC to launch more than one call per year.”
The 2017 Cinema winning projects are as follows:
“A Gaza Weekend” by Basil Khalil
“A Kasha” by Hajooj Kuka
“A Son” by Mehdi Barsaoui
“Amussu” by Nadir Bouhmouch
“Antibodies” by Assem Hendawi
“Bottles” by Yassine El Idrissi
“Displaced in Heaven” by Khaled Jarrar
“Divine Wind” by Merzak Allouache
“How Grandmother Became a Chair” by Nicolas Fattouh
“If It Were Not For Their Presence, We Would Have Thought the War Never Happened” by Ghassan Halwani
“In Vitro” by Larissa Sansour
“Mad Crossings” by Ayman Nahle
“Musical Apocalypse” by Jacques Debs
“On that Day” by Mohanad Yaqubi
“Quadrum” by Fadi Yeni Turk
“Saudade” by Roy Dib
“Searching for Kikhia” by Jihan Kikhia
“Strange Cities” are Familiar by Saeed Taji Farouky
“Tawaseef” by Ali Shiran
“The bridge” by Hala Lotfy
“The Return” by Meyar Al-Roumi
“The River” by Ghassan Salhab
“The World We Knew” by Kawthar Younis
“Weldi” by Mohammed Ben Attia
“What Comes Around” by Reem Saleh
“Wooden Rifle” by Alfoz Tanjour
“You Will Die At Twenty” by Amjad Abu Al Ala
“Yusra and Dorothy” by Salim Abu Jabal.
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