ACC, GFF to participate in Venice International Film Festival

CAIRO – 1 September 2019: For the fourth year in a row, the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) will attend Venice International Film Festival, along with nine of its partners. The 76th edition of the festival runs from August 28 to September 7.

The partners that will accompany the ACC to this year's edition are : Arab Radio & Television (ART) (Saudi Arabia), El Gouna International Film Festival, Ergo (Egypt), Film Clinic (Egypt), MAD Solutions (Egypt, UAE), Sudan Film Factory (Sudan), Sudan Independent Film Festival (Sudan), The Imaginarium Films (Jordan), and WIKA for Film Production and Distribution (Egypt).

During the festival, the ACC will release the latest issue of its Arab Cinema Magazine. The new issue includes a special list of Top 50 Arab Screenwriters, in addition to a huge detailed profile on the history and the future of the horror genre in the Arab world.

As part of the activities of the Venice Production Bridge, a reception will be organized to welcome the festival's guests on September 1. The reception is sponsored by Connect4Climate, World Bank Group, Eurimages and the Arab Cinema Center.

Furthermore, some of the ACC's partners will screen their films in the festival's different competitions and sections. Arab Radio & Television (ART) will screen its films"A Son" by director Mehdi Barsaoui in the Horizons section, "All This Victory" by director Ahmad Ghossein in the Critics' Week section, and "You Will Die at Twenty" by Amjad Abu Alaa in the Venice Days section, which is co-produced by Film Clinic and Sudan Film Factory another partners of the ACC.

For the fifth year in a row, MAD Solutions will offer its marketing and distribution award to one of the Arab film projects participating in the 7th Final Cut in Venice. Likewise, El Gouna International Film Festival will present a monetary award of $5000 to one of these Arab film projects at the same program and will grant it participation at its Cine Gouna Platform.

The film projects competing for the MAD Solutions Award and El Gouna International Film Festival Award are the feature films: "Another Day in Baghdad" (Iraq) by Maysoon Pachachi and "Mica" (Morocco) by Ismaël Ferroukhi, in addition to the documentaries "Captains of Za'atari" (Egypt) by Ali El-Arabi and "Nardjes, Alger, Mars 2019" (Algeria, Brazil) by Karim Ainouz.

The Arab Cinema Center (ACC) celebrates its fifth year since its inception in 2015. A non-profit organization registered in Amsterdam, the ACC is an international promotional platform for Arab cinema as it provides the filmmaking industry with a professional window to connect with their counterparts from all over the world through a number of events it organizes.

The ACC also provides networking opportunities with representatives of companies and institutions specialized in co-production and international distribution, among others. The ACC's activities vary between film market main wings, introduction and networking sessions for Arab and foreign filmmakers, welcome parties, as well as meetings with international organizations and festivals, and the issuance of the Arab Cinema Magazine to be distributed at the leading international film festivals and markets.

It is worth mentioning that newsletter subscription is now available on the ACC's website, allowing users to obtain digital copies of the Arab Cinema Magazine, as well as news on the ACC's activities, notifications of application dates for grants, festivals and offers from educational and training institutions, updates on Arab films participating at festivals, exclusive news on the Arab Cinema LAB, and highlights from the ACC's partners and their future projects.

The ACC also launched an English-language Arab Cinema Guide, available on its website, which is a comprehensive cinematic guide that comprises a variety of tools presented collectively for the first time to offer information on Arab cinema to filmmakers inside and outside of the Arab world. It also aims to facilitate filmmakers' access to international markets and help film industry representatives to easily identify Arab film productions.

Furthermore, the Arab Cinema Center announced the launch of the MAD 3ARABI (Arab Flow) in Prague, Czech Republic. The festival aims to introduce the Arab culture and focus on the film and TV industry, flowing Arab entertainment and culture onto European shores, and also providing an extension for Arab filmmakers and content creators in the entertainment industry to reach new shores.