It would not be a film festival without awards, and Diff is no exception.
The festival’s main prizes are the Muhr awards, which are split into in four categories: Emirati (see our spotlight elsewhere in this preview), Features, Short and Gulf Short.
The international judging panel includes Egyptian filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah, Ukrainian documentarian Sergiy Loznytsya and Emirati poet and journalist Adel Khozam.
The annual IWC Award, meanwhile, offers US$100,000 (Dh367,000) to regional filmmakers to help take their movie ideas from the development stage to the screen. This year's judges are led by Diff regular, actor Ali Suleiman (Lone Survivor, Zinzana). On a smaller scale, but just as exciting for the winners, the Samsung Short Film competition tasked entrants with shooting a short movie using only a Samsung mobile phone. The winners will receive a bundle of Samsung goodies and a trip to next year's Cannes Film Festival, where their films will be shown in the Short Film Corner section.
The new Arab Film Studio Scriptwriting programme, a collaboration between Image Nation Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Film Market, will also present its awards during the festival, with the winner taking home Dh100,000 to help transfer their movie from page to screen.
Audiences get to have their say through the People’s Choice Award, with voting papers handed out at all screenings.
Previous winners include Hany Abu-Assad's Palestinian docudrama The Idol and Disney's Frozen.
cnewbould@thenational.ae
