Arab World Premiere for Submarine to be Held at Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF)

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Competing for the Muhr Competition for Short Films

Arab World Premiere for Submarine to be Held at Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF)


Following its participation in the 41st Toronto International Film Festival, director Mounia Akl's film Submarine will have its Arab world premiere at the 13th Dubai International Film Festival (7 - 14 December) as it competes in the Muhr Competition for Short Films.

Produced by Cyril Aris and Jinane Chaaya, and distributed by MAD Solutions in the Arab world, Submarine stars Yumna Marwan, Julian Farhat, and Adel Chahine. Submarine was awarded the James Bridges production grant, and will be made into a feature film that Mounia Akl is currently writing, and is set to be completed soon.

Under the imminent threat of Lebanon's garbage crisis, Hala, a wild child inside of a woman is the only one to refuse evacuation, clinging to whatever remains of home.

Garbage crisis in Lebanon has raised global public opinion during the past year after the Lebanese people have protested extensively as the garbage crisis worsens with no proper solution found over the years. Protesters call for a solution to garbage crisis which has left Lebanon's streets filled with garbage causing environmental pollution.

Mounia Akl is a Lebanese director and writer. She holds an MFA Directing and Screenwriting from Columbia University in New York. She is best known for her TV/web-series Beirut, I Love You (I Love You Not) which made a huge success and marked a large number of YouTube views. In 2015, Akl co-founded Breaking Wave Pictures with 7 MFA film students at Columbia University. Her previous work includes many award-winning short films like Christine, EVA, Anoesis, and Fasateen web series, produced by Yahoo. Mounia Akl has recently finished the editing of the award-winning Spanish film El Adios. Mounia also co-wrote the short film The President's Visit, currently in post-production, that has been awarded a Katharina Otto-Bernstein Film Fund award, and a Doha Film Institute Production Grant.

DIFF is one of the most important film festivals in the Arab world. In each edition, DIFF showcases over 120 features, shorts films and documentaries from around the world and will include several world premieres. Every year DIFF presents new and exciting cinema from the Arab world and beyond, introducing audiences to fresh, new talent and original and distinctive filmmaking.