Qatar, a small Arab country rich in oil and gas, recently proposed to replace Donald Trump’s Air Force One with a $400 million jet, likening it to a “palace in the sky”, a sign of its ambitiousness, taking its nascent film and television business to a new level.
The Qatar Film Council is an official body, part of the Qatar hub of the Media City Qatar, whose mission is to drive the growth of the country's entertainment industry and is led by Hassan Al Thawadi. He is a lawyer at Katari, responsible for the 2022 FIFA World Cup football match, which is considered a victory for the country. Al Thawadi has now added the movie Biz to his supervision. Additionally, two sources familiar with the global movie scene say that the Emirates’ top players have already had discussions with U.S. entertainment executives, involving co-financing and producing original content.
Hollywood is always hovering in capital and is looking for new sources of financing. Qatar is trying to diversify from the energy sector and from soft energy forms such as culture and media. It is becoming increasingly difficult for film studios to find investment. Wall Street is sore about the industry, believing that the entertainment industry has been over-leveraged and dumped money to launch streaming services, many of whom took a long time to make money. In addition, once promising foreign markets, such as China, have deviated from the American media group and instead supported the investment of more resources into local films and series.
Qatar's business in southern France this year is a prerequisite, which may be a preface to positioning itself as a Hollywood partner, although the ultimate goal is to develop local industries. On Croisette is also Doha’s Katara Studios, which produces the opening and closing ceremonies of the Qatar World Cup. The studios are ramping up production of movies for the international market with a slate that includes “Sakhr,” a biopic of Kuwaiti trailblazer Mohamed Al Sharekh, who developed the first Arabic-language operating system for computers, and fantasy feature “Sari & Amira,” which centers on an outlaw Bedouin bandit couple who seek a legendary treasure in the desert, directed by AJ Al Thani.
The Emirates’ long-established Doha Film Institute celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, supporting eight films with its grants, including “Once Gaza’s Once In Gaza,” by Palestinian director duo Tarzan and Arab Nasser. Qatar plays a key role in promoting a now-destroying ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and is a staunch supporter of Palestinian cinemas.
More broadly, DFI is the top film industry driver in the Middle East and North Africa. Its unique Qumra event is an incubator and co-production market that helps to cultivate the first and second works, mainly trained by Arab directors and held the 11th edition in Doha in April. The event’s mentors this year include Johnnie, Walter Salles and Darius Khondji. Its art advisor is Auteur Elia Suleiman of Palestine, who knows about films involving long-running Arab-Israel conflicts such as "Divine Intervention", "The Remaining Time" and most recently "Must be Paradise," which premiered in Cannes in 2019.
DFI CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi will announce plans at the Cannes Film Festival to transform its existing Ajyal Film Festival into a more ambitious international event specifically for youth and family-friendly films. Alremaihi recently told type.
Brent Lang contributed to this report