Extensive Activities by Arab Cinema Center and Partners at Venice International Film Festival

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Final Cut Awards, Jury Membership, and New Issue of Arab Cinema Magazine

Extensive Activities by Arab Cinema Center and Partners at Venice International Film Festival


As part of its strategy to promote Arab cinema internationally, Arab Cinema Center (ACC) joins the Venice International Film Festival (29 August - 8 September) with extensive activities, in cooperation with 12 of its partners.

The participating ACC partners in Venice are: ART (Saudi Arabia), Cinema 70 (Saudi Arabia), Film Clinic (Egypt), Film Lab: Palestine (Palestine), iProductions (Egypt), Iraqi Cinema (Iraq), Lagoonie Film Production (Egypt), MAD Solutions (Egypt-UAE), Pan East Media (Jordan), Rotana (Saudi Arabia), The Imaginarium Films (Jordan), and The Producers (Egypt).

The MAD Solutions award will be presented for the fourth consecutive year at the 6th Final Cut in Venice workshop (1 - 3 September), held on the margins of the 75th Venice International Film Festival. The award offers marketing and distribution services across the Arab world to the winning film project. Additionally, Lagoonie Film Production will present a monetary award of 5000 Euros to one of the Arab film projects in the post-production stage participating in workshop.

This edition of the festival witnesses the participation of Producer and Screenwriter Mohamed Hefzy (Film Clinic) as a jury member of the Horizons (Orizzonti) section. The Orizzonti section offers the awards for the Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Short Film, along with a Special Jury Prize. The film project Certified Mail by director Hisham Saqr, which is a Film Clinic co-production, is competing for the Final Cut in Venice workshop prizes as well.

Arab Cinema Center (ACC) has also released the 9th edition of its Arab Cinema Magazine at the festival ahead of its tour that will include several international film festivals until the end of the year, including Toronto, Malmo, Carthage, Cairo, Mar del Plata, in addition to Rotterdam early next year, among others.
Sponsored by the ACC, in cooperation with the Venice Production Bridge, a cocktail reception will be held for the guests of the Venice International Film Festival on Saturday night, September 1st.

Organized by MAD Solutions in 2015, the Arab Cinema Center (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 organizes. The ACC also provides networking opportunities with representatives of companies and institutions specialized in co-production and international distribution, among others. The ACC's activities vary between film market main wings, introduction and networking sessions for Arab and foreign filmmakers, welcome parties, as well as meetings with international organizations and festivals, and the issuance of the Arab Cinema Magazine to be distributed at the leading international film festivals and markets.

Furthermore, newsletter subscription is now available on the ACC's website, allowing users to obtain digital copies of the Arab Cinema Magazine, as well as news on the ACC's activities, notifications of application dates for grants, festivals and offers from educational and training institutions, updates on Arab films participating at festivals, exclusive news on the Arab Cinema LAB, and highlights from the ACC's partners and their future projects.

The ACC also launched an English-language Arab Cinema Guide, available on its website, which is a comprehensive cinematic guide that comprises a variety of tools presented collectively for the first time to offer information on Arab cinema to filmmakers inside and outside of the Arab world. It also aims to facilitate filmmakers' access to international markets and help film industry representatives to easily identify Arab film productions.

The Arab Cinema Center launched the MAD 3ARABI (Arab Flow) in Prague, Czech Republic. The festival aims to introduce Arab culture and focus on the film and TV industry, flowing Arab entertainment and culture onto European shores, and also providing an extension for Arab filmmakers and content creators in the entertainment industry to reach new shores.