Qumra, an annual event designed to nurture budding filmmakers, will welcome more than 100 industry professionals during its second edition set from March 4 to 9 at Katara - The Cultural Village.
These include international film festival directors, producers, fund managers, script consultants, distributors and other experts.
Organised by Doha Film Institute (DFI), Qumra will also welcome new organisations for the first time at the gathering dedicated to support first- and second-time filmmakers on both creative and practical levels.
The delegates come from Argentina, Australia, India, the Netherlands, Egypt and the US.
“Qumra presents a very important component in nurturing a film industry in Qatar and the Arab world and the participation of international industry experts is integral to this initiative,” DFI CEO Fatma al-Remaihi said.
DFI had seen many productive and tangible outcomes for the projects that were developed in the first edition of Qumra.
The Qumra industry programme is centred around 33 projects from Qatar, the Arab region and the rest of the world at various stages of development.
The industry sessions are presented in two strands: tutorials, workshops, consultations and one-on-one meetings for projects still in development; and a series of work-in-progress and “picture lock” screenings and feedback sessions for projects in post-production.
Among the leading industry names to attend the event this year are David Parfitt, Academy Award-winning producer, chairman of Film London and ex-chairman of BAFTA; Christophe Leparc, managing director, programmer at Director’s Fortnight Cannes Film Festival and recently appointed festival director of Cinemed; Cameron Bailey, festival director, Toronto International Film Festival; Carlo Chatrian, artistic director of Festival Del film Locarno; Vincenzo Bugno, project manager of Berlinale World Cinema Fund and member of the Berlinale Competition Selection Committee; Matthijs Wouter Knol, director of the European Film Market at the Berlin International Film Festival; Remi Burah, senior executive vice-president, ARTE France Cinéma; Cara Mertes, director of the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms; Mike Goodridge, CEO of Protagonist Pictures; Alexandre Mallet-Guy, president of Memento Films; Michael J Werner, managing director and chairman of Fortissimo Films; and first-time representatives from Netflix, AMC/Sundance Channel Global and the Sundance Institute.
Qatar-based organisations are represented by Innovation Films and Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Centre along with 120 Qatar-based film, media and entertainment delegates who will also participate in the programme.
Qumra has three main elements: Masterclasses by the Qumra Masters, which will be led this year by James Schamus (US), Joshua Oppenheimer (US), Naomi Kawase (Japan), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey) and Aleksandr Sokurov (Russia), industry meetings and screenings.
All projects selected by DFI will benefit from the industry meetings with the experts to take their work to the next stage.
The screenings are in two categories: Master Screenings and New Voices in Cinema.
The Masters Screenings this year include The Look of Silence (Denmark, Indonesia, Finland, Norway, UK, Indonesian, Javanese, 2014) by Joshua Oppenheimer, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkish, 2011) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan; Russian Ark (Russian Federation, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Russian, 2002) by Aleksandr Sokurov; The Mourning Forest (Japan, France, Japanese, 2007) by Naomi Kawase; and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Taiwan, Hong Kong, US, China, Mandarin, 2001) by Ang Lee.
The New Voices in Cinema segment will have The Palm Tree (Qatar, No Dialogue, 2015) by Jasim al-Rumaihi; Mediterranea (Italy, France, Germany, Qatar/Arabic, English, French, Italian, 2015) by Jonas Carpignano; Roundabout in my Head (Algeria, France, Qatar, Arabic, 2015), and Waves 98 by Ely Dagher (Lebanon, Qatar, Arabic, 2015).
