Fatma Al Remaihi, the chief executive of the Doha Film Institute, can't wait to give audiences in the Middle East their first chance to see The Idol, the biopic about Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf, who became an international sensation when he won Arab Idol in 2013.
The film, directed by Academy Award-nominated Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, will have its regional premiere when it opens the Ajyal Youth Film Festival in Doha next month.
It follows warm receptions for the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and its European debut at the London Film Festival last Monday. The UAE premiere will be at the Dubai Intenational Film Festival in December.
“It’s a great opening-night film for the Ajyal Youth Film Festival, as it fits perfectly with what we want to do,” says Al Remaihi. “We want to spread the message of hope with dreams to our youth. The Mohammed Assaf story is an inspiration to our youth that, in the midst of the most difficult situation, you can go out and achieve your dream.”
DFI joined forces with Image Nation Abu Dhabi, broadcaster MBC and Enjaaz, a Dubai Film Market Initiative, to produce the film, which tells the story of Assaf’s childhood in Gaza and the obstacles he had to overcome to compete in the reality-TV singing competition.
“Working with Hany Abu-Assad is a great opportunity,” Al Remaihi said last week, just hours before the London screening. “He is brilliant at what he does and he is a very well-celebrated Arab filmmaker – we are very proud of him.
“Being involved at the production stage gave us a chance to send some of our local filmmakers to work with Mr Abu-Assad in post production and to shadow what he is doing. That’s always a great opportunity and one of the reasons that we invest in these types of films to give to the community.”
It is likely that Abu-Assad and Assaf will attend the gala screening at the festival, along with members of the film’s young cast.
“Hopefully, we will have a lot of people who worked on the film available in Doha,” says Al Remaihi.
The Idol is one of 22 feature films and 60 short films that will screen during the festival, which runs from November 29 to December 5, and focuses on family-friendly films.
The full line-up has yet to be announced, but Al Remaihi revealed that Jafar Panahi's Taxi, which won the Golden Bear top prize at the Berlin Film Festival in February will be screened, as will two films that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May: An, a gentle tale about an unhappy cook's professional relationship with an elderly woman, by Japanese director Naomi Kawase, and Mia Madre, a drama from Italian director Nanni Moretti about a filmmaker with a complicated and distracting family life.
Another DFI-funded film that Al Remaihi is excited about showcasing at Ajyal is Very Big Shot, the debut film from Lebanese director Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya.
“We are very excited about this film because it’s different, it’s a genre film with the theme of corruption,” Al Remaihi says. “It’s a little bit more mature, so it’s going to be for the age group that is a little bit older than young children.”
Very Big Shot also screened at the London Film Festival, along with several other DFI-funded films: Palestinian women's-prison drama 3000 Nights by Mia Masri; Madame Courage by Algerian writer and director Merzak Allouache; Dégradé by twin brothers Arab and Tarzan Abu Nasser; Lamb by African filmmaker Yared Zeleke; and The Garbage Helicopter, a comedy set in Sweden by Jonas Selberg Augustsén.
The third edition of the Ajyal Youth Film Festival is the first to take place since the launch of Qumra, a DFI event aimed at fostering regional filmmaking talent. The inaugural edition took place in March. In a year of changes in the Middle East film festival scene, including the demise of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Al Remaihi says that DFI is likely to continue to stage both events.
“I think the new strategy with two festivals, Ajyal and Qumra, has been working really well for us,” she says. “We know our community better now and we know the film industry better, so we are trying to build something that is related to our need and our community.”
A link between the two festivals will see Danis Tanovi, who gave a masterclass at Qumra, present at Ajyal his latest film, Tigers, a thought-provoking account of the powdered-milk scandal in Pakistan.
“We are happy to have him back,” says Al Remaihi. “Everyone really loved his masterclass because he’s very outspoken and speaks his mind very openly. I know that a lot of the filmmakers and Qataris who attended the masterclass appreciated the masterclass and were in awe of him.”
• The 3rd Ajyal Youth Film Festival will run from November 29 to December 5. The full programme will be announced in the coming weeks. Visit www.dohafilminstitute.com for more details
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