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The Abu Dhabi Film Festival Unveils The Contenders In The Emirates Competition And The Short Film Competition |
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The 2010 Abu Dhabi Film Festival has announced its selections for the Emirates Competition and the Short Film Competition for films from all over the world. Both competitions award prizes to short narratives and documentaries, providing vital support for this important, but underfunded format. Short filmmaking is an especially vibrant part of the film industry, serving as both a training ground for young directors and as a laboratory to which established filmmakers return to experiment with new ideas. "Short films are more than just an exercise for beginners, although that is one of their essential functions, of course,” said Peter Scarlet, Executive Director of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. “Above all, they should be seen as a fully-fledged cinematic art form, which engenders particularly imaginative kinds of storytelling. Short films offer a level of artistic freedom that is irresistible, even to famous filmmakers and actors. The fact that many of them are more than happy to get involved in short films for next to no financial reward is a telling sign of what an intriguing format this is.” "As we announced earlier this year, integrating the Emirates Competiton into the Abu Dhabi Film Festival tremendously enriches the Festival’s program and further enhances the outlook for regional filmmakers,” said Eissa Saif Rashed Al Mazrouei, the Festival’s Project Director. “The winners in this category will benefit from the full spectrum of our support, which goes well beyond publicity and prizes to include invaluable networking opportunities and year-round mentoring.” ABOUT THE SHORT FILM COMPETITION The Short Film Competition is open to films with a running time of 35 minutes or less and invites submissions of narrative and documentary shorts, including student projects, from all over the world. The films nominated for this Black Pearl Awards section compete for prizes ranging from US$5,000 (AED18,300) to US$25,000 (AED91,800) in five categories: Best Narrative Short, Best Documentary Short, Best Short from the Arab World, Best Animated Short and Best Student Shorts. FESTIVAL VENUES The Abu Dhabi Theater, a stunning new venue generously provided to the Abu Dhabi Film Festival by the Emirates Heritage Club, one of most attractive gathering places in the UAE. Set in the midst of the city’s Heritage Village on the breakwater, with stunning views of Abu Dhabi’s skyline and famed Corniche, the theater is the ideal place for people to discover regional filmmaking, a vibrant contemporary expression of Arab culture. Along with the Emirates Palace Auditorium and Cinestar Cinemas, Marina Mall, the Abu Dhabi Theater is one of three Festival venues this year. ABOUT THE FESTIVAL The Abu Dhabi Film Festival (formerly the Middle East International Film Festival) was established in 2007, with the aim of helping to create a vibrant film culture throughout the region. Presented each October by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) - recently described by Newsweek as the leading cultural organization in the Arab world - under the patronage of H.E. Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, the Festival is committed to curating exceptional programs to engage and educate the local community, inspire filmmakers and nurture the growth of the regional film industry. As the only festival in the region in which works by Arab filmmakers are represented equally in competition with those by major talents of world cinema, the Festival offers Abu Dhabi’s diverse and enthusiastic audiences a means of engaging with their own and others’ cultures through the art of cinema. At the same time, a strong focus on the bold new voices of Arab cinema connects with Abu Dhabi’s role as a burgeoning cultural capital in the region and marks the Festival as a place for the world to discover and gauge the pulse of recent Arab film. |
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