Film fest seeks budding talent

Nearly half a million dirhams will be paid out in prize money to budding movie-makers from across the region at this year's Gulf Film Festival (GFF).

The festival will be held in Dubai from April 8 to 14 under the patronage of Sheikh Majid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, which is organising the event.

The festival is intended to celebrate Gulf cinema, strengthen local and regional talent and provide infrastructure for growth.

"The festival is one of the authority's key initiatives and gives filmmakers from the Gulf a vibrant platform for growth," said GFF Chairman Abdulhamid Juma, a member of the authority's board.

Festival Director Masoud Amralla Al Ali, said: "In just two years the GFF has created a groundswell of interest in filmmaking in the region. This is an exciting foundation on which to build and we're anticipating more entries than last year."

The GFF is accepting entries for its two competitions – one for films and one for scripts until February 15.

One category is for professional moviemakers and the other for students. The professional contest is for films from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, Yemen and Iraq, and is divided into three sections – feature films, shorts and documentaries.

The student category is open to works produced during academic study or as part of a college project, and has two sections – short films and documentaries.

The second competition is exclusively for short films scripts written by UAE Nationals. To nurture the local industry, all the prize money in this contest will go towards producing the three winning scripts in the UAE.

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