As part of the ACC Talks launched by the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) on Instagram, journalist and film critic Deborah Young (The Hollywood Reporter) will interview Egyptian director Marwan Hamed (The Blue Elephant) on Thursday, June 11 at 06:00 PM (GMT). The interview will stream on the ACC’s official page on Instagram.

Streaming time of the third episode of ACC Talks in Arab countries:

Egypt - 08:00 PM
UAE - 10:00 PM
Tunisia - 07:00 PM
Morocco - 06:00 PM
Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait - 09:00 PM

The ACC Talks is a series of live weekly interviews where a jury member from the Critics' Awards for Arab Films and Arab Critics' Awards for European Films host interviews with international filmmakers. These talks will be available with Arabic and English subtitles across the ACC’s social media accounts, as well as on its website, acc.film.

Egyptian director Marwan Hamed is known for directing box-office hits. His latest film Blue Elephant: Dark Whispers has made record-setting success, grossing more than EGP 100 million ($8 million). His directing credits include many blockbusters that also won multiple awards, including his feature debut, The Yacoubian Building, which dominated the Egyptian box office for the entire summer season in 2006, generating more than $4 million in more than 15 countries all over the world, The Blue Elephant, which grossed $6 million worldwide, and the thriller-mystery Diamond Dust ($2 million). Hamed is currently shooting his new film Kira & El Gen that is based on writer Ahmed Mourad’s best-selling novel 1919.

Based in Rome, Italy, Deborah Young is an American film critic, writer and festival director of American film festivals. She graduated with honors from Wellesley College and received an M.A. in Cinema Studies from New York University. Young served as the Artistic Director of the Taormina Film Festival for five years before leaving to become the International Film Editor of The Hollywood Reporter. In 2019, Young received the Achievement Award for Film Critics, presented by the Arab Cinema Center (ACC).
Organized by MAD Solutions in 2015, the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) is a nonprofit organization registered in Amsterdam. The 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 markets, stands, and pavilions, networking sessions and one-on-one meetings bringing together 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.