Within two weeks of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival’s launch of its film fund, Sanad, five applications and numerous enquiries have already been received. Sanad will allocate a total of $500,000 in development and post-production grants to outstanding regional filmmakers.
"The feedback has been phenomenal, which goes to show the great potential of a fund like Sanad to help regional filmmakers develop and complete their projects. The Arab world is fertile ground for filmmaking and we are very happy that through the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and Sanad we can have a direct impact on the development of a film culture that is vital to a strong film industry,’ commented Eissa Saif Rashed Al Mazrouei, the festival’s project director.
To further raise international awareness of the new fund, Abu Dhabi Film Festival executive director Peter Scarlet will present Sanad at the Cannes film Festival’s Producers Network on 14 May together with Marie-Pierre Macia, who has been appointed to oversee the fund.
The Algerian born Macia is an internationally acclaimed film programmer and is a former head of the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival. In this capacity she presented the first features of such renowned filmmakers such as Sofia Coppola, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Carlos Reygadas and Stephen Daldry. Her long-standing support of Middle Eastern cinema can be exemplified by her having been the first to bring the work of Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman to the attention of European viewers.
