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“Yunan” unfolds as a measured exploration of one man’s search for solace. Munir, a Hamburg-based novelist weighed down by chronic stress and a sense of dislocation, arrives on Germany’s marsh-flooded Hallig islands under a doctor’s recommendation to rest. Stripped of familiar routines, he confronts his own isolation amid windswept pastures and salt-stung air.

Director Ameer Fakher Eldin fashions this film as the second installment of his ‘Homeland’ project, following 2021’s debut. Coproduced across Palestine, Jordan, Canada, Germany, Italy and France, the movie bridges narratives of Middle Eastern displacement with European landscapes. This international partnership brings authenticity to a story centered on exile and human connection.

The film’s heartbeat is its unhurried tone, a naturalistic drama that alternates between Munir’s real-world encounters and poetic interludes drawn from a fragmentary fable. These dream-like sequences echo Abbasid poetry, weaving cultural symbolism into the stark northern coast.

Cinematographer Ronald Plante...

In writer-director Ameer Fakher Eldin’s slow but haunting meditation on exile, Yunan, displaced persons can return to their roots only to find they never left. Nothing in the past has changed except their place in it: “You will be gone, forgotten. As if your existence was nothing but an illusion.” The film is driven by a performance of few words but much gravitas from Lebanese actor Georges Khabbaz as Munir, a novelist of unspecified Middle Eastern origin, living in Hamburg. The somber drama has a cumulative spell, intensified by its hypnotic visual command and an atmospheric principal setting on Germany’s Hallig Islands.

Munir is introduced in a doctor’s office, plagued by frequent shortness of breath that becomes almost overwhelming. The medic tells him his respiratory tests came back normal, suggesting that stress might be his problem and that a break would do him good.

Calls to his...

The Doha Film Institute has recruited Oscar nominee Walter Salles (“I’m Still Here”), iconic Hong Kong director Johnnie To, prominent Filipino auteur Lav Diaz, ace cinematographer Darius Khondji and master Mexican costume designer Anna Terrazas to hold onstage conversations and act as mentors during its upcoming Qumra Arab industry incubator.

The event, now celebrating its 11th edition, will run April 4-9 in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Qumra, which means “camera” in Arabic, blends together a creative workshop, co-production market and festival elements. It was established by the Doha Film Institute (Dfi) to help foster first and second works, mostly by Arab directors, and to create curated networking opportunities between the Arab and international film communities.

The Dfi is a major indie Arab film industry driver and has also been providing funding for Arab TV series for the past few years. Qumra 2025 will feature a selection of top notch Arab films in various stages,...

The fact that only two German films were selected to compete at the 75th Berlinale raised some eyebrows and sparked interest in the pair of sophomore features that received the distinction over new works from higher-profile filmmakers like Tom Tykwer and Jan-Ole Gerster. One such designated Golden Bear contender is Yunan by Syrian-born, German-based director Ameer Fakher Eldin. Featuring iconic Fassbinder muse Hanna Schygulla, it’s a contemplative, somewhat ineloquent drama about the exile experience that aims high but misses the mark.

Munir (Georges Khabbaz) is an Arab writer living in Hamburg. Although doctors can’t find anything wrong with him, Munir is suffering from shortness of breath and what seems to be general world-weariness. When he gives away his dog, transfers money to his sister back home to take care of their senile mother, and travels to a remote island with nothing but a light bag, you know he...

Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25 makes a strong debut on the Berlin critics jury grid while Johanna Moder’s Mother’s Baby, Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Yunan and Dag Johan Haugerud’s Dreams (Sex Love) also land.

Kontinental ’25scored a 3.1 average rating from the critics, putting it second behind Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail on 3.4. Jude’s Romanian-set drama received three four-stars (excellent) four three-stars (good) and two two-stars (average) – the latter from Barabara Hollender and Kalapapruek.

Click on the grid above for the most up-to-date version

Jude was last in Berlin with his Golden Bear-winning Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn...

You can see why Munir, a soul-sick writer from an unspecified country in the Middle East, chooses Germany’s remote Hallig Islands as the place to end it all. The soft, watery landscape serves as a suitably calm and scenic backdrop to one’s final days on earth, though it’s not so spectacular or stimulating as to give you a new lease on life altogether. Not at first, anyway. But in the course of Ameer Fakher Eldin’s poetic, existential drama “Yunan,” Munir does gradually find more to the place — and, in turn, to his own life — than initially meets the eye. As a mellow, slow-burning study of cross-cultural human connection, the film is quietly rewarding; a folkloric parallel strand, mapping the protagonist’s journey onto his native heritage, is less successful.

Premiering in competition at the Berlinale, “Yunan” is the second entry in Fakher Eldin’s “Homeland” project,...

Producers and film professionals from the Arab region discussed their perception of a “quota system” at festivals as well as distribution challenges, during a panel held by the World Cinema Fund in conjunction with Berlinale Talents.

Alaa Karkouti, CEO of Arab film distribution outfit Mad Solutions, suggested that festivals had a “quota” for different regions outside of Europe, including the Arab region.

“While there’s improved space for Arab films at festivals like Cannes and Venice, I always feel like there’s a kind of quota,” said Karkouti. “Like here, media have asked me, ‘how do you feel with Yunan in the main competition?’ This question is asked with good intentions but you’ll never ask that of a European film.”

Comprised of five subsidiaries, Karkouti’s Cairo-headquartered Mad Solutions is involved with film sales, management and marketing for Arab films and runs operations in the UAE, Jordan and Lebanon,...

Nothing is Everything: Eldin’s Continuing Exploration of Existential Crisis

For his sophomore film Yunan, intended as the second chapter in a thematic trilogy following 2021’s The Stranger, director Ameer Fakher Eldin presents a parable within a parable as a disillusioned writer contemplates suicide. The milk of human kindness, and what appears to be a metaphorically biblical flood, reinvigorates his zest for life. Aided by accepting an epiphany, which basically regards the reality we are all destined to die and be forgotten (which Nirvana might have stated more eloquently as ‘all in all is all we are’), we follow him on his journey towards a peaceful reckoning to enjoy the present.…...

Opening a film with a line of poetry is always a problematic way to start: the words are quickly forgotten once the visuals begin, making the verses far more meaningful were they before the final credits. In the case of Yunan, the words come from the Abbasid poet Al-Mutanabbi and they speak of craving a person’s presence, yet even when together, “the distance will still linger between us.”

It’s an apt line for the film, both in terms of the inability of the main character to bridge both metaphorical and physical distances, and in the way Ameer Fakher Eldin’s atmospheric sophomore feature keeps the audience at a certain remove, refusing clear-cut explanations or simple emotional catharses. Suffused with a melancholy as saturated as the damp air of the North Sea, Yunan follows on from Fakher Eldin’s ultimately more affecting debut The Stranger with its exploration of...

Sales activity at the Berlin Film Festival and European Film Market revved up on Saturday as Sony Pictures Classics struck a deal for North American rights to Rebecca Zlotowski’s murder mystery “Vie Privée,” starring Jodie Foster.

Variety‘s Elsa Keslassy had the scoop on SPC’s deal for the film, which also covers key territories in Latin America. “Shot in Paris and Normandy, ‘Vie Privée’ is currently in post-production and will likely world premiere in the festival circuit,” Keslassy writes.

Foster, who speaks fluent French, stars in the film as renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner, who mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients after she becomes convinced that there has been a murder. Foster last starred in a French-language film 20 years ago in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Oscar-nominated “A Very Long Engagement.” Zlotowski ranks as one of France’s top filmmakers. “Vie Privée” marks her first deal with Sony Pictures Classics.

Italy’s Intramovies has agreed a string of all-rights deals on Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Berlin Competition title Yunan ahead of its world premiere on Wednesday.

Fandango has acquired rights to Italy, while Immergutefilme Filmdistribution has taken German -speaking rights. Filmarti Film has bought Yunan for Turkey and Filmoption International for Canada. Mena rights were previously acquired by Mad Distribution.

Yunan is about an exiled Arab writer who travels from Hamburg to a North Sea island to die by suicide, only to meet a devoted elderly woman who changes his perspective.

The film is produced by Germany’s Red Balloon,...

The Berlin Film Festival is historically the most political of all the major film festivals, and this year is no exception.

The 75th edition of the Berlinale unspools amid the turbulent lead-up to Germany’s Feb. 21 general elections that in recent weeks have seen thousands of Germans take to the streets in Berlin and other cities against the rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which champions tough new rules pertaining to immigration.

And right on cue, the fest’s opening film, Tom Tykwer’s “The Light,” depicts a deeply dysfunctional Berlin family that is saved by its Syrian housekeeper. It’s a “hardcore political” picture, said the director.

“The Light” is one of several films in the fest’s official selection that tackle themes pertaining to immigration and are deeply rooted in the city. “Berlin is so unfinished in so many ways: architecturally, socially, politically,” Tykwer noted.

Germany’s film industry may have been hit hard by the economic slowdown, resulting in an overall gloomy outlook, but it’s still celebrating the biggest number ever of local films and co-productions at this year’s Berlinale and looking forward to a diverse lineup of 2025 releases, among them a number of high-profile sequels.

Compounding the sector’s overall predicament was the collapse of the federal government in November, forcing snap elections scheduled for Feb. 23. The political crisis left an ambitious reform of the country’s federal film funding system only partially implemented and a matter to be tackled by the next government.

The industry nevertheless welcomed the current government’s last-minute extension and increase of two key funding incentives in December that has ensured planning security for producers, studio operators and production service providers.

In the meantime, the local film community is cheering the strong showing of German titles at the Berlin Film Festival.

Carla Simon’sRomerïa andIldiko Enyedi’sSilent Friendare among the 15 features to have received grants fromEurimages’ inaugural Film Marketing & Audience Development Support Programme.

The recipients also include two Berlinale films: Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Competition titleYunan andIdo Fluk’s Köln 75, which will have its world premiere as a Berlinale Special title.

Scroll down for the full list

The films will each receive a non-repayable grant of up to€50,000. Films must have signed a deal memo or contract with an international sales agent to be eligible for the yearly programme.

In total, the 15 features will receive €729,900.

The programme aims to encourage...

Carla Simon’sRomerïa andIldiko Enyedi’sSilent Friendare among the 15 features to have received grants fromEurimages’ inaugural Film Marketing & Audience Development Support Programme.

The recipients also include two Berlinale films: Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Competition titleYunan andIdo Fluk’s Köln 75, which will have its world premiere as a Berlinale Special title..

Scroll down for the full list

The films will each receive a non-repayable grant of up to€50,000.Films must have signed a deal memo or contract with an international sales to be eligible for the yearly programme.

In total, the 15 features will receive €729,900.

The programme aims to encourage the...

The lineup for the 75th Berlin International Film Festival has been unveiled, with 19 films competing for the coveted Golden Bear. Outside of those, the festival will also host the world premiere of Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, have a screening of James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown and offer up Tom Tykwer’s latest, The Light, which will be opening the festival.

Here is the full competition lineup for this year’s Berlin International Film Festival:

Ari – Léonor Serraille

Blue Moon – Richard Linklater

La cache (The Safe House) – Lionel Baier

Dreams – Michel Franco

Drømmer (Dreams (Sex Love)) – Dag Johan Haugerud

Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani (What Does That Nature Say to You) – Hong Sangsoo

Hot Milk – Rebecca Lenkiewicz

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You – Mary Bronstein

Kontinental ’25 – Radu Jude

El mensaje (The Message) – Iván Fund

Mother’s Baby – Johanna Moder

O último azul (The Blue Trail) – Gabriel Mascaro

Reflet...

The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for the 2025 edition, running February 13-23. It’s the first official lineup overseen by new artistic director and former BFI London Film Festival leader Tricia Tuttle, who succeeds Carlo Chatrian and brings her background as an American journalist and curator to the annual German showcase. She’s also working with co-directors of programming, Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz, to help reposition the Berlinale’s profile among the great global film festivals and lure bigger-name filmmakers in the process.

This year’s lineup, announced Tuesday, January 21, features new films from Richard Linklater, Michel Franco, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Hong Sangsoo (“What Does That Nature Say to You”), Radu Jude (“Kontinental ’25”), and Lucile Hadžihalilović (“The Ice Tower”). Already confirmed in the mix are “Mickey 17” from Bong Joon Ho and Ira Sachs’ Sundance premiere “Peter Hujar’s Day,” plus Tom Tykwer’s “The Light” opening the festival.

Following last week’s lineup announcement, the Berlinale 2025 has now fleshed out its slate with the Competition, Special, and Perspectives sections. Highlights include the world premieres of Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott; Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25; Hong Sangsoo’s What Does that Nature Say to You; Michel Franco’s Dreams starring Jessica Chastain; Lucile Hadžihalilović’s The Ice Tower starring Marion Cotillard; and Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk with Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw, and Vicky Krieps.

The festival will also include international premieres from Julia Loktev, Mary Bronstein, Kahlil Joseph, and more. In terms of omissions for films that potentially could have been a strong fit: there’s no Steven Soderberg’s Black Bag, Wes Anderson’s German production The Phoenician Scheme, nor Berlinale regular Christian Petzold, who wrapped Miroirs No. 3 only a few months ago.

Check out the lineup...

Mad Solution is a dynamic conglomerate that spans several creative and business sectors, all aimed at elevating the entertainment industry. The company operates through distinct divisions, including Mad Celebrity, Mad Content, Mad Marketing, Mad Distribution, and Mad World. Mad World serves as the foundational entity within this ecosystem, leading groundbreaking initiatives in cinema and beyond.

In 2024, Mad World launched its operations in Cannes, with a hefty worldwide slate of exciting new Arab-language films. There are currently more than a dozen titles — some completed, others in various stages of production — that are entirely new to the international licensing marketplace. Among them are unexpected narratives from Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia that between them span a multitude of storytelling tones and genres.

The Mad Celebrity division itself is diversified, encompassing three distinct categories:

Mad Celebrity for established stars. Mad Rising for emerging talents. Mad Crew, dedicated to behind-the-scenes professionals.

Cairo-based Mad Distribution has acquired Jonathan Millet’s Critics’ Week opener Ghost Trail from mk2 Films, Somali director Mo Harawe’s Un Certain Regard drama The Village Next To Paradise from Totem Films and Anne-Marie Jacir’s upcoming All Before You for release in the Middle East and North Africa.

They are three of 30 titles secured by Mad Distribution for Mena territories, which also include Saif Hammash’s Palestinian short Deer’s Tooth, selected for La Cinef, and Rayane Mcirdi’s Algerian-French short After The Sun, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight.

The distribution arm of indie studio Mad Solutions plans...

The Doha Film Institute (Dfi) has selected 44 projects for its 2024 spring grants cycle, including Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown, which has its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes next Wednesday, May 22.

Fleifel’s fiction feature debut is a crime thriller about a Palestinian refugee living on the fringes of Athens society, who seeks revenge on the smuggler who ripped him off.

Scroll down for the full list of grants

Palestinian-Danish filmmaker Fleifel studied at the UK’s National Film and Television School, and previously made 2012 feature-length documentary A World Not Ours, which played at the Berlinale and Cph:dox.

The Red Sea International Film Festival (Red Sea Iff) is delighted to announce the winners of the Red Sea Souk Awards – vital funding and in-kind grants to develop and boost new talent from Saudi, Arab and African directors. Three juries deliberated to finally select nine winning feature ideas and two TV series, whose creative visions will now benefit from generous prizes awarded by the Red Sea Fund and its award partners.

A total of 24 new film projects screened as part of the Red Sea Souk, with 12 titles by filmmakers of African and Arab origin, alongside 12 Red Sea Lodge projects by Saudi, Arab and African directors which have been developed over the last year through intensive workshops and in partnership with the Torino Film Lab. The Red Sea Souk Project Market jury awards are supported by the Red Sea Fund, and in the selection were five Saudi projects, eight African projects...

Saudi Arabia Launches First Cinema Guild Six Year After Lifting Of Ban

Saudi Arabia has launched its first official film industry guild six years after the lifting of its 35-year cinema ban in 2017. The initiative overseen by Minister of Culture, Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al-Saud, was announced during the Red Sea International Film Festival. “Having a professional association is fundamental for the development of the sector,” inaugural board member and director Hana Al Omair told a conference discussing the objectives of the new body. She said the association’s key role would be to establish legislation for the sector as well as labor rights for cinema professionals. Al Omair was joined in the discussion by the association’s president, the artist and producer Mishal Al Mutairi; veteran acting star Abdulmohsen Al-Nimr; director Tawfik Alzaidi, whose first feature Norah world premiered at the festival on Tuesday evening as well as Alaa Faden,...

The third edition of the Red Sea Souk, the market arm of the Red Sea Film Festival, awarded its top prize of $100,000 to “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Rani Massalha. Another eight feature projects and two TV series were awarded cash and in-kind prizes as part of the Red Souk Awards.

Massalha’s film, a co-production between Egypt, Tunisia and France, tells the story of Salem, a pig farmer in Egypt who is a Copt — a native Christian community in the country, often persecuted — amidst a breakout of the swine flu in 2009 that sends Egypt into a spiral of psychosis, leading the Mubarak government to pass a law to slaughter all the pigs.

In a statement, the writer-director said: “The pigs of Egypt were ‘sacrificed’ under political pressure and hysterical media coverage organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, crystalizing the structural violence of Egyptian social relations between communities.”

“Isn...

Industry speakers at festival include ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ director Jasmila Zbanic, former Marvel exec Karim Zreik.

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) has selected 26 feature film projects for its Red Sea Souk Project Market; plus a Work-in-Progress showcase, and speakers for its 360° industry events programme.

The 26 Souk projects hail from Africa and the Arab region. Titles include Djeliya, Memory Of Manding, a documentary from Burkinabe filmmaker Boubacar Sangare, whose third film A Golden Life played at the Berlinale earlier this year.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Also included is Scandar Copti’s animated documentary A Childhood,...

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival has revealed details of the Red Sea Souk, the fest’s industry market that will offer meeting and networking opportunities revolving around new Arab and African product.

The Souk will take place Dec. 2-5 alongside the Nov. 30-Dec. 9 fest in Jeddah, on the Red Sea’s eastern shore. The fest’s industry side will also comprise the Red Sea Talent Days on Dec. 6-7, which will give regional talents and young filmmakers a chance to connect with industry experts.

The Red Sea Souk Project Market will showcase 26 feature-length projects from across the Arab and African region. Of these, 12 are Red Sea Lodge projects that were developed in-house during the year through workshops and labs in partnership with Italy’s Torino Film Lab.

Four of these projects will be awarded the annual Red Sea Lodge production prizes of $50,000 each.

All 26 selected projects in the...

The Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has revealed the 26 projects selected as part of this year’s Red Sea Souk Market, which will run Dec. 2-5.

“The Red Sea Souk Project Market will present 26 feature-length projects from across the Arab and African region, offering a first opportunity for the industry audience to connect and build future opportunities with these projects,” organizers said on Tuesday.

Part of the selection are 12 “Red Sea Lodge” projects which were developed during the year through workshops and in partnership with the Torino Film Lab. Four of them will be awarded the annual Red Sea Lodge production prizes of $50,000 each.

All 26 projects in the market will compete for cash prizes offered by the Red Sea Fund, to be awarded by an international jury of producers. They are worth $35,000 for development, $25,000 for the jury special mention award and $100,000 for production.

Meanwhile, the...

The Red Sea International Film Festival, has unveiled the 26 projects selected as part of its industry-focused Red Sea Souk Market, running from December 2 to 5.

Projects in development include Palestinian director Scandar Copti’s A Childhood, Lebanese-French filmmaker Danielle Arbid’s Love Conquers All and Madness And Honey Days by Iraq’s Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji.

Within the Market selection are twelve Red Sea Lodge projects which were developed during the year through intensive workshops and in partnership with the Torino Film Lab. Four of these projects will be awarded the annual Red Sea Lodge production prizes of $50,000 each.

All 26 selected projects will compete for cash prizes offered by the Red Sea Fund, to be awarded by an international jury of producers: $35,000 for development, $25,000 for the Jury Special Mention Award and $100,000 for production

Another six projects will be showcased in Works-In-Progress section including Men In The Sun by Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel,...

New projects from Cherien Dabis, Anders Thomas Jensen and Ameer Fakher Eldin have also been awarded

Ariane Labed’s feature-directing debut Sisters is among the 33 projects to receive funding from Eurimages second wave of 2023 co-production funding.

The French-Greek actor’s feature directing debut received €350,000 from the €9.7m pot. The Ireland, UK, Germany and Greece co-production is produced by Ireland’s Element Pictures. An English-language adaptation of Daisy Johnson’s gothic novel of the same name it follows two sisters who move to the countryside with their maniac depressive mother. Labed previously directed short film Olla which won three awards at...

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Fund has unveiled its latest round of feature film grantees from the Arab world and Africa.

The announcement comes just days after the fund revealed it had boarded French director Maïwenn’s upcoming costume drama Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp, in its first European investment as executive producer.

In its latest funding round for Arab and African filmmakers, it is getting behind 36 productions by Saudi, Arab and African filmmakers, 25 in or on the verge of production, 11 in post-production.

The 25 production grant winners include upcoming films by established directors such as Abderrahmane Sissako’s The Perfumed Hill, Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Miss Camel, Annemarie Jacir, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Mime, Cherien Dabis, and Karim Moussaoui’s The Vanishing.

The fund has also gotten behind buzzy, emerging talents such as Saudi Arabian filmmaker Sara Mesfer, who is gearing up for her first solo feature Habibi And I In Eden.

Further projects come from Mehdi M. Barsaoui, Ameer Fakher Eldin, Haifaa Al-Mansour and Annemarie Jacir.

The Red Sea Film Festival Foundation has unveiled the 36 recipients of the Red Sea Fund’s 2022 production and post-production funding cycles.

All titles are from Arab and African filmmakers, who will receive grants to help them complete films that shine a light on narratives and new talents emerging from the region.

Two films selected have previously received support at the development stage by the Red Sea Fund. Captain Mbaye from Rwandan filmmaker Joel Karekezi follows a Un observer sent to Rwanda as genocide breaks out.

Prominent Arab talent management agency and film distribution company Mad Solutions is launching Mad Crew Celebrity, a new unit dedicated to boosting the careers of Arab directors and producers, as well as writers, cinematographers, costume designers, composers and editors.

Mad Crew Celebrity comes after the company in 2020 formed its Mad Rising Celebrity division, dedicated to launching up-and-coming film and TV acting talents from across the Arab world, which in turn was a specialized spin-off of its core Mad Celebrity unit for top-tier acting and TV hosting talents.

Their client list at launch includes top directors Hany Abu-Assad (“The Mountain Between Us”), Mohamed Diab (“Moon Knight”), Marwan Hamed (“Blue Elephant”), Ameer Fakher Eldin (“The Stranger”) (pictured), and producer Dora Bouchoucha (“Hedi”) (pictured), to name a few.

Other prominent behind-the-camera talents already on the Mad Crew Celebrity roster include:

– Egyptian showrunner/director/screenwriter Tahmer Mohsen (“Newton’s Cradle”).

– Producer Shahinaz El-Akkad — CEO...

A total of 830,000 in cash prizes and 126,000 in-kind prizes were awarded to Saudi, Arab and African projects in the development and work-in-progress stages, during the award ceremony of the second edition of the Red Sea Souk, held during the Red Sea Film Festival.

Top winners included the Saudi comedy drama “Scapegoat,” in development, directed by Feras Almusharrie, produced by Razan Alsoghayer and written by Taqwa Ali, which won the 100,000 Red Sea Souk Production Award for a Saudi Lodge Project and also the Cinewaves Films award in the form of a 50,000 minimum guarantee for acquisition of Arab World distribution rights.

Egyptian drama “Aisha Can’t Fly Away Anymore,” in development, the debut feature by Orad Mostafa and produced by Sawsan Yusuf, won the 100,000 Red Sea Souk Production Award for an Arab Lodge Project.

Ghanaian-French coming-of-age drama “Vagabonds,” in rough-cut, by Ghanaian-American writer/director Amartei Armar and produced by Sébastien Hussenot and Yemoh Ike,...

“Cinema is not pages and it’s not minutes: it’s the way you look at the minute that passes,” Syrian director Ameer Fakher Eldin is talking about the 55-page script of “Yunan,” his follow up to “The Stranger” (Al Garib), which played at Venice Days in 2021. Eldin knows from the experience of editing his first film that one page doesn’t equal one minute. “It’s a two hour film,” he says.

Eldin’s second feature is due to film in the first half of 2023 and is currently being presented at this week’s Red Sea Souk Project Market of the Red Sea Film Festival. Iconic figure of New German Cinema Hanna Schygulla and Syrian actor Bassem Yakhour have both been cast in the production. They join Lebanese actor Georges Khabbaz (“Capernaum”), and German actor Sibel Kekilli, from “Game of Thrones” and Fatih Akin’s “Head On.”

Filming will...

Ameer Fakher Eldin’s “The Stranger” (Al Garib) will play as one of the last screenings of this year’s Arab Film Festival, the largest of its kind in North America. Though this is only Eldin’s first feature, his movie has reaped international accolades. “The Stranger” premiered at the 78th Venice Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori last year, where it took home the Edipo Re Award. At the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Dp Niklas Landschau walked away for his Achievement in Cinematography. Now, “The Stranger” is up to bat next year as Palestine’s nomination for Best International Feature for the 94th Academy Awards.

The Stranger is screening at the Arab Film Festival

“The Stranger” revolves around Adnan (Ashraf Barhom), who has been dealt an unlucky hand in life. His father (Mohammad Bakri), for one, despises him. He arbitrarily writes Adnan off his will,...

Exclusive: Leading Arab world distributor Mad Solutions has acquired pan-Arab rights to Ameer Fakher Eldin’s upcoming picture Yunan about a disillusioned, exiled writer who travels to a remote island in the North Sea.

Yunan is the second feature from Fakher Eldin, who was born in Kyiv to Syrian parents and now lives in Germany, after his critically acclaimed Golan Heights-set debut The Stranger (Al Garib) which premiered in Venice in 2021, and went on to represent Palestine at the Oscars.

Top Lebanese theater and film actor Georges Khabbaz will play the protagonist writer who travels from his exiled existence in Hamburg to a remote island in the North Sea with thoughts of suicide. There he meets an elderly woman whose quiet humanity incites a reawakening of his desires in life.

German actress Sibel Kekilli, best known for her role as Shae in Game Of Thrones,...

The second edition of the industry platform also includes a Work-In-Progress showcase.

Projects from US filmmaker Lotfy Nathan and Italian-Iraqi director Haider Rashid are among the 23 titles selected for the project market of the Red Sea Souk, the industry platform of the Red Sea International Film Festival.

The project market is split into two sections: 12 projects in the market alone, with a further 11 market projects that have been developed in the Red Sea Lodge throughout the year, in workshops in partnership with the TorinoFilmLab.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

All market projects will compete for three cash prizes,...

The second edition of the industry platform also includes a Work-In-Progress showcase.

Projects from US filmmaker Lofty Nathan and Italian-Iraqi director Haider Rashid are among the 23 titles selected for the project market of the Red Sea Souk, the industry platform of the Red Sea International Film Festival.

The project market is split into two sections: 12 projects in the market alone, with a further 11 market projects that have been developed in the Red Sea Lodge throughout the year, in workshops in partnership with the TorinoFilmLab.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

All market projects will compete for three cash prizes,...

Qatari organisation backs projects from 33 countries

The Doha Film Institute (Dfi) has announced the beneficiaries of its Spring 2022 Grants Programme, backing 44 projects from 33 countries as part of its latest funding cycle.

Three of the beneficiaries – Lotfy Nathan’s Harka, Chie Hayakawa’s Plan 75 and Davy Chou’s All The People I’ll Never Be – are playing in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.

Another grant recipient – Suzannah Mirghani’s Cotton Queen – is participating in Cannes’ L’Atelier programme.

The Dfi grants programme is awarded in two annual cycles – spring and the autumn. It is the Middle East’s longest-running film funding...

With last year’s surprise nominee “The Man Who Sold His Skin” hailing from Tunisia, Oscar handicappers should be sure to give West Asia and North Africa titles close scrutiny this time around.

Among the 11 submissions are several titles likely to be highly competitive in the international feature category. These include Iran’s social media critique “A Hero” from previous two-time winner Asghar Farhadi; Israel’s “Let It Be Morning”, a wry satire helmed by Eran Kolirin, about a Palestinian village put under military lockdown by the Israeli army; and Lebanon’s “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” a darkly comic commentary on the realities of modern-day Lebanon from feature debutant Mounia Akl.

Although “A Hero” may not be prime Farhadi, it already boasts the Grand Prix from Cannes. The narrative focuses on one of life’s losers, a likeable working-class man who, while on a short furlough from debtors prison, engineers events...

Mexican director Joaquin del Paso’s coming-of-age drama “The Hole in the Fence,” set in an all-male religious camp in rural Mexico, scored the Cairo Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Pyramid, on Sunday capping a vibrant 43rd edition of the preeminent Arab event, which was held in person despite the impending threat of the coronavirus Omicron variant.

Though there were some last minute cancellations, most international attendees made the trek to Cairo undeterred, including jury president Emir Kusturica, U.S. producer Lawrence Bender and Cannes topper Thierry Fremaux – dubbed the “King of the Croisette” by the master of ceremonies. The latter two were honored with lifetime achievement awards during the glitzy closing ceremony in Cairo’s opera house.

“Hole in the Fence,” which world premiered in Venice, is Del Paso’s second work after “Panamerican Machinery,” which had made a splash after launching from Berlin in 2016. “Hole” explores...

Germany’s Red Balloon Film and Palestine’s Fresco Films have boarded director Ameer Fakher Eldin’s second film “Nothing of Nothing Remains.” The film is part of a trilogy building on his first film, “The Stranger” (pictured), which premiered in Venice and represents Palestine at the Oscars in the International Feature Film category.

“Nothing of Nothing Remains” has received development and script funding from German regional funder Moin Film Fund in Hamburg. Fresco and Red Balloon are now moving into the financing phase for the film.

“It’s part of a trilogy,” Eldin tells Variety, speaking from Berlin. “The first film, ‘The Stranger,’ is about a stranger amongst his own people. The second one is about a stranger amongst strangers. I do not want to give too much away but it’s a story set in Germany. The third one will be set in France. All three films are about the theme of home.

Gloom, deployed as a storytelling tactic, can exert a strange, unsettling pull when it’s as capably and beautifully conveyed as in Syrian director Ameer Fakher Eldin’s “The Stranger,” recently announced as Palestine’s international Oscar entry. A granular depiction of oppression as a kind of inescapable inheritance handed down from father to son, with mothers and daughters its peripheral, persevering survivors, .

But it is also attuned to the bleak grandeur of the landscapes in this cinematically little-seen region, and its rich, painterly images, appropriately hemmed into boxy Academy ratio, should make “The Stranger” as much a calling card for its cinematographer, Niklas Lindschau, as for Eldin. If not more so: Whenever Eldin’s screenplay gets too ponderous, when the pacing lags or the storytelling withholds too much, there is always a surprising composition to pin our attention. An elderly woman folding linen is briefly a Vermeer. A far-off mountainside in fall,...

Every year since its creation in 1956, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invites the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The award is presented annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue and that was released theatrically in their respective countries between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021. The shortlist of fifteen finalists is scheduled to be announced on 21 December 2021. The final five nominees are scheduled to be announced on 8 February 2022.

Here are the Asian Submissions for Best International Feature Film. There are some excellent movies in this bunch and we have seen and reviewed already some of them.

Armenia

“Should the Wind Drop” by Nora Martirosyan

Azerbaijan

“The Island Within” by Ru Hasanov

Bangladesh

“Rehana” by Abdullah Mohammad Saad

Bhutan

“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom...

Jury prizes returned this year following a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Prize money totalling €125,000 was handed out to 10 films screening in this year’s Filmfest Hamburg (September 30-October 9), which saw jury prizes return following a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic.

On Friday evening (October 8) at Hamburg’s producer awards, the jury comprising producer Martina Haubrich and directors Julian Pörksen and Arman T. Riahi presented the producers award for German cinema productions, worth €25,000, to Jonas Weydemann of Weydemann Bros for Sabrina Sarabi’s No One’s With The Calves, which had been screened in the Grosse Freiheit section.

Sarabi...

The Moin Filmförderung supported 13 features at Filmfest Hamburg and several industry initiatives.

Northern Germans traditionally greet each other with a heartfelt “Moin!“ instead of a “Guten Tag” or “Guten Abend“ but another meaning has now been coined after the regional fund Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (Ffhsh) underwent a major rebranding this summer.

“The fund’s name change to Moin Filmförderung (Moving Images North) was important for us an organisation to be much clearer in how we communicate what we do,“ says the fund’s CEO Helge Albers.

“There’s a lot to this claim,“ he explains. “it covers regionality and a...

The Moin Filmförderung supported 13 features at Filmfest Hamburg and several industry initiatives.

Northern Germans traditionally greet each other with a heartfelt “Moin!“ instead of a “Guten Tag” or “Guten Abend“ but another meaning has now been coined after the regional fund Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (Ffhsh) underwent a major rebranding this summer.

“The fund’s name change to Moin Filmförderung (Moving Images North) was important for us an organisation to be much clearer in how we communicate what we do,“ says the fund’s CEO Helge Albers.

“There’s a lot to this claim,“ he explains. “it covers regionality and a...

It’s not often that films shoot in the Occupied Golan Heights, Israel’s contested border territory with Syria and Lebanon.

Characterized by sloping mountains and the ruins of more than 100 Syrian villages, destroyed (by Israel) after the Six Day War in 1967, it makes for an atmospheric filming location. This can be seen in “The Stranger” (Al Garib), a drama making its world premiere in the Venice Critics’ Week section on Monday.

The Arab and German crew shot in rough conditions, including dense fog that hugged the mountain villages that are now reduced to rubble. Slush washed over the empty roads leading to the Syrian border, and heavy snow falls cut off Majdal Shams, the biggest town in the area, from the rest of the world, to create a shadowy darkness in this post-Christmas shoot in 2019 by first-time feature director Ameer Fakher Eldin.

Eldin directed from his own script. He...

“Madeleine Collins,” the buzzy psychological drama directed by France’s Antoine Barraud (“Portrait of the Artist”) and toplined by popular Belgian actress Virginie Efira who plays the lesbian nun in Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta,” is among ten competition titles set to launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section.

The Venice section modeled around the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight is largely made up of international first works this year. All entries are world premieres.

Besides “Madeleine” in which Efira (pictured) plays a woman who leads a double life –– and which also features Nadav Lapid, who is also the Israeli director of “Synonyms” and also Jacqueline Bisset –– the three other pics competing in Venice Days that are not first works are: the drama “Private Desert,” by Brazilian director Aly Muritiba (“Rust”) that is centered around a 40-year-old-cop’s Internet love interest who goes missing; “Dusk Stone,” by Argentina...

A total of 31 projects from 28 countries have received Dfi support, including two Yemeni films for the first time.

Lebanese filmmaker Mounia Akl, Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat and Academy Award-nominated Syrian documentarian Feras Fayyad are among the recipients of the Doha Film Institute’s 2019 spring funding round.

Overall, 37 projects from 28 countries have received fresh grants from the Qatari body, which is one of the only steady sources of financing for independent cinema in the Arab world.

A total of 31 of the projects hail from the Arab world, with two film projects coming from Yemen for the first time.

Two of the grantee films,...