The BBC revealed the full list of the jury members of the BBC Arabic Festival 2018, including Maher Diab, Creative Director and Managing Partner of MAD Solutions and Arab Cinema Center (ACC), within the Feature Documentary Panel.

Alongside Diab, the jury members list of the Feature Documentary Panel includes; Dave Calhoun, Head of Film and Entertainment at Time Out Digital, and producer Emma Loach, who joined the BBC's commissioning team this year. The list also includes Fatima Manji, Rasha Qandeel and the BAFTA-winning documentary filmmaker Tristan Anderson in the Reportage and Short Documentary Panel. In the Short Documentary Panel, the list includes Marianne Khoury, the Director of Encounters Film Festival Rich Warren, and the CEO of the Doha Film Institute (DFI) Fatma Al Remaihi.

As an annual festival for one week, the BBC Arabic Festival presents various bold features and documentaries that tackle the political and social unrest in the Arab world. The films are judged by a panel of experts from the press and film industry. Film submission is still open until 20 October.

The BBC Arabic Festival will be held in the spring of 2018 at the BBC Radio Theatre in London. The events include film screenings, a series of forums and debates that highlight current events and the status of freedom of expression in the Arab world.

In 2010, Maher Diab co-founded MAD Solutions, the first pan-Arab studio dedicated to the promotion and distribution of Arabic content to the Arab world and beyond. In 2015, through MAD Solutions, Diab co-founded the Arab Cinema Center (ACC), 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.