There will be opportunities for networking, encounters and meetings in which directors and producers will be able to engage with the participants in the workshop.
The 78th Venice International Film Festival (September 1 – 11) has announced an open call for Arab and African film projects at its ninth Final Cut in Venice workshop (September 5-7) that aims to support Arab films in the post-production stage. MAD Solutions and El Gouna Film Festival, partners of the Arab Cinema Centre (ACC), will continue to offer prizes for the Arab film projects participating in the Final Cut.
For the seventh year, MAD Solutions offers its award that is represented in promotion and distribution services in the Arab world to the winner. This is also the fifth year for El Gouna Film Festival to present its monetary award of $5000 within the workshop, in addition to an invitation for the winning project to participate in CineGouna Platform.
The award offered by MAD Solutions comes as part of the company’s strategy to support the Arab film industry through its different production stages internationally and regionally and to promote them in the long run. The company previously offered similar awards at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, where the award was dedicated to films from the Maghreb region, the MAFF Market Forum (MMF) of the Malmö Arab Film Festival in Sweden, the Palestine Cinema Days, and the Festival National du Film Professional Meetings in Tangier, Morocco.
As for El Gouna Film Festival, it offers monetary prizes for Arab film projects on international platforms, such as the MAFF Market Forum (MMF) of the Malmö Arab Film Festival in Sweden, Latin Arab Co-Production Forum, Beirut Cinema Platform, CineGouna Platform, in addition to Final Cut in Venice.
The Final Cut in Venice workshop supports films in the post-production stage from Africa, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria. The selected films in progress will be presented to producers, distributors and programmers of international film festivals. The workshop concludes with an award ceremony to honour the winning films that will be supported through the post-production phase.
The Final Cut in Venice aims to develop the role of the Venice International Film Festival to become a bridge that supports independent filmmaking in these countries by providing effective production support and promoting the films on the international market level.
Organized by MAD Solutions, the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) was launched in 2015. A nonprofit organisation 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 that it organises.
