As the global film industry gears up for Europe’s most glamorous and glitzy event, the Cannes International Film Festival (12 to 23 May), the Abu Dhabi Film Festival is mobislising a big presence at the Abu Dhabi Pavilion at Cannes.
The pavilion’s co-hosts are ADACH (Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage), ADFC (Abu Dhabi Film Commission), Imagenation Abu Dhabi and twofour54.
Visitors to the pavilion can meet with the major players in the Middle Eastern film industry as well as the festival’s Executive Director Peter Scarlet.
Abu Dhabi is fast becoming the cultural capital of the Middle East, with much of the recent surge in Middle Eastern filmmaking being facilitated by the emirate’s wide-ranging cultural initiatives. As the only festival in the region where works by Arab filmmakers are represented equally in competition with those by major talents of world cinema, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival is at the center of the emirate’s drive to foster regional film culture. Offering a platform for the bold new voices of Arab cinema, the Festival is a place for the world to discover and gauge the pulse of recent Arab filmmaking.
To further support regional film, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival recently launched Sanad, a new annual development and post-production fund for filmmakers from the Arab world. As the first regional film fund to be coupled with an international festival, Sanad offers a unique level of exposure and support to its recipients.
The fourth installment of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival will be held from October 14 to 23, 2010.
