Despite the closure of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, the Sanad fund – a key component of the event, that provides financial support to aspiring Arab filmmakers to develop or complete their films – is still very much in existence.
Little has been said so far about last week's decision to wrap up the festival. But at a Sanad networking event at Cannes on Saturday, Paul Baker – the head of twofour54 intaj in Abu Dhabi, the organisation that last year was given control of Abu Dhabi Film Festival, and the man who brought Star Wars to the emirate – exclusively talked to The National about the decision.
“We felt that given the success of the last few years and what we’re trying to achieve in terms of becoming a serious content-driven destination, we just felt that our primary focus should be how we can develop our ecosystem to encourage more productions to shoot in Abu Dhabi,” he said.
That sounds fair enough, but while the desire to bring more international productions to Abu Dhabi is clearly praiseworthy, it seems odd that the capital has closed its festival after an event, in October last year, that most observers felt was the best yet.
On top of that, in the past year or so Abu Dhabi celebrated the high-profile coups of having Star Wars and Furious 7 film in the capital – surely a sign that the emirate is getting pretty good at attracting productions?
“It’s great that you like what we did last year, and the festival clearly played a key role in developing the profile we have both regionally and globally now,” says Baker. “But there came a point where we had to make decisions about how we strategically move forward, and we have to support production.
“Great things have come out of the festival, such as Sanad, and all the people that are here today are up-and-coming or experienced Arabic filmmakers that want to access something that’s very respected.
“We think that that’s a great legacy for the festival, to continue doing that, and to continue supporting the development of Arabic content throughout the region, and although it’s a different thing, we hope to also grow the audiences for Arabic content, and put it in more cinemas.”
Baker also had praise for the Dubai International Film Festival.
“In the Gulf region, Dubai is the festival now, and that’s a good thing,” says Baker. “It’s a very successful festival and I’m sure it will continue to be so. Certainly from our perspective we want to continue to work very closely to use the projects that we have, and have developed, to strengthen the proposition of Emirati cinema.”
Does that mean closer cooperation between Abu Dhabi and Dubai on future projects? We can’t be sure, but it sounds hopeful. As for the future for twofour54, Baker was clear.
“We have a carefully defined strategic direction of what we’re trying to achieve, and I think you’d agree over the last year that’s what we’ve achieved,” he says. “For example, the rebate [Abu Dhabi offers a 30 per cent capital expenditure rebate to international filmmakers who shoot in the emirate] has been hugely successful. We had 14 productions last year, half of which were Arabic.
“We have a very clear focus of what we’re trying to achieve and we made the decision that this was the next phase in our development, which of course restructures the organisation a little.”
cnewbould@thenational.ae