The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI), Cinema 70 and Ma3mal 612 Think Factory Join the Arab Cinema Center's Partners List

Back to Press Releases

From the United States, Saudi Arabia and Jordan

The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI), Cinema 70 and Ma3mal 612 Think Factory Join the Arab Cinema Center's Partners List


Arab Cinema Center (ACC) has announced that three new film companies and institutes have joined its list of partners. The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) in the USA, the cinema brand Cinema 70, run by Rowad Media in Saudi Arabia, in addition to Ma3mal 612 Think Factory in Jordan. The new partners are going to work together with Arab Cinema Center to promote the Arab film industry in international markets.

The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) is a unique ecosystem that aims to find, nurture, connect, and develop Arab film and media projects and empower local Arab talent to tell their communities’ stories in their own voices. The AFMI also organizes the Arab Film Festival, the largest and oldest festival in the United States, a place where Arab and Arab-American filmmakers are discovered, and supported. AFMI seeks to transform the way people see the world through Arab films.
Cinema 70 is a cinema brand run by Rowad Media through its CEO, Saudi director and producer Mamdouh Salem, who is the founder of the first film festival in Saudi Arabia. Established in 2005, Rowad Media is a media company that provides production and distribution services for the audio and video sectors. The company aims to present high-quality media and Arabic entertainment content, made by Saudi experts, and form a modern and creative entertainment and media industry with professional standards.

Ma3mal 612 Think Factory is a collaboration made up of thinkers and workers from different backgrounds and disciplines who design innovative projects based on thematic topics that relate to the Arab World. Functioning as an incubator for thinkers and artists, helping them engage in both creative thinking and creative action, Ma3mal 612 works to create an enlightened social and artistic lobby that can voice the priorities of the region collectively, rather than just individually. Ma3mal was designed to produce and enhance the production of films, documentaries, video art, installations and other visual and artistic projects, with a focus on work that has the potential to create change within our civil societies.

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 Center'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 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.