The Network of Arab Arthouse Screens (NAAS) has selected director Omar Shargawi's film Al Medina among the short list of films chosen to compete for the award offered by NAAS at the Carthage Film Festival (28 October - 5 November). The award includes distribution services for a feature film as well as a short film, and the winners are set to be announced during an award ceremony that will be held on the sidelines of the festival on Friday, 4 November at the Conference Palace.

While film is competing within the Official Feature Film Competition at the Carthage Film Festival (28 October - 5 November), it will take part in the 28th Cairo International Film Festival (15 - 24 November) within the Arab Cinema Horizons Competition.

Recently, Al Medina participated in several international film festivals, most notably the Arab Camera Festival in Netherlands, Oran International Arab Film Festival (FIOFA), in addition to landing its world premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) and being commercially released in Denmark last May. The film is set to be released in Arab cinemas soon.

Al Medina tells the story of Yusif who decides to come back along with his Danish pregnant wife Sarah to his home town Al Medina. His God fearing heart is following a dream of returning to his roots to search for peace and happiness with his wife and unborn child. Yet only when he kills a beggar boy, by mistake, his life changes and this throws him into the dark side of his own home town. Al Medina stars Ashraf Farah, Ghazal, Sara Hjort Ditlevsen, Hassan Shaer, NaderaOmran, Majida Al Bashayreh, Makram Khoury,Siham Al Kurdi, and Ali Elian.

Al Medina is a co-production between Rula Nasser (The Imaginarium Films) and Danish producers Tomas Radoor and Rene Ezra (Nordisk Film Production). The film's Arab world distribution and marketing is assigned to MAD Distributions.

Network of Arab Arthouse Screens (NAAS) is a network of independent arthouse cinemas and cultural organizations united by the common goal of developing cinema culture across Arab countries by promoting the best of local, regional and world cinema amongst its large combined audience. The network is comprised of committed and experienced members aiming to promote art and cinema from Morocco to Bahrain, as well as establish and strengthen co-distribution, programming, promotion and training, in the face of common obstacles and individual local isolation. In 2016, NAAS began its partnership with the Carthage Film Festival which states that two films, a long feature and a short film, will be awarded the distribution services award, from 16 films out of the participating projects in the festival.