The second edition of the Souk will take place from December 3-6, with an awards ceremony on the final day.
Red Sea International Film Festival has unveiled the jury for the Red Sea Souk Project Market and the Red Sea Work-In-Progress.
The juries will award several prizes to eligible films to a total value of $400,000, together with several ‘in kind’ awards from two new Red Sea Souk partners.
The jury for the Red Sea Souk Project Market consists of Belgian filmmaker Aurelien Bodinaux of Neon Rouge Productions; Tunisian producer Habib Attia, who is managing director of leading Tunisian production company Cinetelefilms; and Jordanian producer Rula Nasser, who runs The Imaginarium Films.
French director Houda Benyamina, Moroccan filmmaker Yasmine Benkiran and Giona Nazzaro comprise the jury of the Work-In-Progress showcase, which selected six feature projects in post-production last month.
The three Project Market Jury members will award six Red Sea Souk awards, granted by the Red Sea Fund. Souk projects are eligible for the Development Award (worth $35,000), the Special Jury Development Prize Award (worth $35,000), and the Production Award (worth $100,000). Red Sea Lodge projects are eligible for two Production Awards, each worth $100,000. One Post-Production award is available for a Souk Work-In-Progress, to the value of $30,000.
The Red Sea Souk also welcomes two new award partners, Titrafilm and Oticons.
Titrafilm will offer an ‘in kind’ award for eligible Souk projects, providing them with subtitles, DCP or broadcasting. Oticons will grant a Souk project a Music Consulting Award, as well as offer one Work-In-Progress project to a composer to build an original score for their film.
Belgian-born Bodinaux runs Neon Rouge Productions, an independent production company through which he develops, produces and directs documentaries and fiction films. His films have been shown all over the world and have won awards at film festivals such as Locarno, FESPACO, Berlin, Fipa, Amiens, Kiev and IDFA Marrakesh.
Habib Attia is a Tunisian cinema and TV producer and the Managing Director of Cinetelefilms, first founded in 1983 and now one of the leading production companies in Tunisia. Habib focuses on fiction and documentary projects themed around contemporary socio-cultural issues. His work has been distributed worldwide and has received awards at some of the most prestigious film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, San Sebastian and Toronto. His films Brotherhood and The Man Who Sold His Skin were nominated for the Oscars in 2020 and 2021 respectively. In 2021, Attia received the rank of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Republic, in recognition of his career.
Rula Nasser is an independent Jordanian producer who started out working with the BBC and Discovery Network on their projects in the Middle East. In 2005, she joined the Royal Film Commission to work on developing the Filmmaker’s Support Program. In 2021, she established The Imaginarium Films, which focuses on discovering and developing new talent and creating original content that appeals to audiences both regionally and internationally. Several of her films have premiered at international festivals such as Locarno and Cannes, while The Holly Spider, produced by Nasser and directed by Ali Abbasi, was nominated for a Palme d’Or in 2021.
Nazzaro Artistic Director of Locarno Film Festival. Member of the Artistic Team of IFFR – International Film Festival Rotterdam (2019-2020). Programmer and curator for Visions du Réel, Nyon, Switzerland (2010-2019).Member of the SNCCI (Union of Italian film critics), journalist and writer. Author of many books and essays on Hong Kong Cinema, postmodern action films and contemporary documentary, contributes regularly for the newspaper il manifesto and weekly Film Tv. Critic in chief for monthly music magazine Rumore. After spending some time in the United States where she directed a pilot for a series, she joined forces with Damien Chazelle and directed two episodes of the series The Eddy (Netflix). In 2022, Houda Benyamina presented Salam, which she co-directed with Diam’s and Anne Cissé, at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Official Selection. She is currently in the midst of preparing the shoot for her second feature film.
Benyamina’s solo directorial debut Divines won the Camera d’Or for best debut feature at Cannes in 2016. She is in post-production on her next film Toutes Pour Une. She studied philosophy and communication sciences in Paris and made her first experiences in Buenos Aires, San Francisco and London before entering the French national film school La Femis in the screenwriting workshop (l’atelier scenario). As a screenwriter, Yasmine writes for both television and cinema. She also wrote two books about Morocco and a historical series of podcasts about Alice Guy, the world’s first female director. I
Myriam Arab, the Red Sea Souk Main/Lead Consultant said: “We are honoured and thrilled to welcome these prestigious jury members to the Red Sea Souk, the industry platform of the Red Sea Film Festival and to distribute these highly valuable awards to serve the Arab and African talented filmmakers emerging generation. We are committed to encouraging and promoting brilliant world cinema and helping new Arab and African cinema Voices to receive the audience and recognition their work deserves.”
The awards will be presented during the Red Sea Souk Award Ceremony on the 6th of December.
