The Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) has selected eleven projects to receive development and post-production funding from Sanad, the festival’s fund for Arab filmmakers. Established by ADFF in 2010, Sanad is designed to provide financial aid for feature-length narrative and documentary projects. The eleven projects selected to date were submitted for Sanad’s first application cycle […]
The Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) has selected eleven projects to receive development and post-production funding from Sanad, the festival’s fund for Arab filmmakers.
Established by ADFF in 2010, Sanad is designed to provide financial aid for feature-length narrative and documentary projects.
The eleven projects selected to date were submitted for Sanad’s first application cycle of 2011. Another round of selections will be chosen from among applications for the second cycle (deadline July 1st 2011).
Well-known filmmakers including Jocelyne Saab (Lebanon), Hala Alabdallah (Syria) Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania), Samir (Iraq) and Malek Bensma l (Algeria) are among the directors of the selected projects.
ADFF executive director Peter Scarlet said, “We are truly happy that this first selection includes important veteran filmmakers such as Sissako and exciting newcomers like Safinez Bousbia, whose El Gusto will be screened at our upcoming festival in October. It also gives us great pleasure to see that projects that have received Sanad development grants in 2010 are moving forward towards production. For example, Mohamed Al-Daradji’s The Train Station has now been selected for the sixth Cin fondation Atelier in Cannes. His first feature, Son of Babylon, already celebrated its world premiere in Abu Dhabi, and Al-Daradji received the Variety Award for Best Middle East Filmmaker of the Year at the 2010 festival.”
Sanads head Marie-Pierre Macia stated that the festival receives several high-quality projects and the selection process is always difficult.
We are very proud of Leila Kilani whose On the Plank, which received a post-production grant in 2010, has been selected for this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. We are looking forward to the projects that will be submitted for the second cycle of Sanad, which closes on July 1.”
Eissa Saif Al Mazrouei, director of Special Projects at ADACH stated that the festival was also extending post-production funding to Hala Alabdalla’s As If We Were Catching a Cobra, which received a Sanad development grant in 2010.
Several other productions including No Direction Home, directed by Guy Brooks and John Hollingsworth and produced by Rashid Al-Marri among many others have also been selected.
