Sanctity Part of Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts

After Winning in the Short Competition at the Gulf Film Festival

Sanctity Part of Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts

Saudi Filmmaker and Actress Ahd participates in the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts through her film Sanctity. The 16th installment of the festival, which opened on June 4th, 2013, where Sanctity will compete against 19 other films within the Short Competition.

Sanctity has recently won at the official Short Competition in the 6th Gulf Film Festival that took place in April.

Shot on location in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Sanctity is written and directed by Saudi Filmmaker and Actress Ahd and is considered her second directorial effort. The film is produced by BIZIBI andSILVERGRAY with the participation of the Centre National du Cinémaet de l'image Animée CNC.

Mohamed Othman stars opposite of Ahd in his first acting role in the film as well as veteran actorMohamed Bakr. Sanctity tells the story of Areej, a young widow who tries her best to protect her unborn child.

The Ismailia International Film Festival is the 6th festival participation by Sanctity. The film's first participation was in Doha Tribeca Film Festival where Sanctity got awarded the Development award in the Arab Short Film competition. The second festival participation of Sanctity was in the prestigiousBerlin International Film Festival where it was the first Saudi film to ever screen within the framework of the highly acclaimed festival. In March, the film participated in the 7th Ayam Beirut Al Cinema'yia ArabFilm Festival. Then the film took part in the International Short Films section at the Bird's Eye View Film Festival, which was held in London and aims to shed the light on women's contributions to the cinema. In this year's installment of that festival, the focus was to celebrate Arab women filmmakers.

Launched in 1988, the Ismailia festival is one of the major film festivals in the Arab world, and the first in the MENA region to be exclusively dedicated to documentaries and shorts.

Ahd's directorial debut was the short film The Shoemaker where she played the title role opposite of the Egyptian actor Amr Waked. The film received numerous awards from Arab and international festivals including the Gulf Film Festival and Beirut International Film Festival, as well as competing in the official competition at the International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand.

In October 2012, Ahd was selected as a jury member in the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. In the same year,Ahd participated in the highly acclaimed Venice International Film Festival through the Saudi filmWadjda where she played a role. She also starred the Turkish film Razn for which she won the GoldenGate Award for Best Actress at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The film also participated in Rotterdam Film Festival.

Ahd is the first Saudi woman to study film acting and filmmaking in the USA, after which she worked on Hollywood films including The Kingdom with Director Peter Berg in 2007.