Steven Soderbergh, Ramy Youssef and Michaela Coel are among special guests lined up to attend Qatar’s inaugural Doha Film Festival later this month.
Soderbergh and Coel will touch down at the festival – running from November 20 to 28 – for a Special Screening of Neon-acquired The Christophers, which world premiered in Toronto.
Further Special Screening titles include Re-Creation by Jim Sheridan; Shoot the People by Andy-Mundy Castle; My Story by Yasser Ashour; Palestine 36 by Annemarie Jacir and the World Premiere of Qatari feature film Sa3oud Wainah by Mohammed Al-Ibrahim produced by Katara Studios.
Other profile international and regionally renowned guests due to attend include Turkish stars Engin Altan Duzyatan and Hazal Kaya; veteran Kuwaiti actor, Jassim Al Nabhan; Tunisian Egyptian cinema star Dorra Zarrouk as well as Palestinian actors Saleh Bakri and Hiam Abbas who appear in Palestine 36.
The festival will showcase 97 films from 62 countries across different sections, including the previously announced International Competition, offering more than $300,000 in prize money and featuring 13 world cinema titles including Once Upon a Time in Gaza, The President’s Cake and Cotton Queen.
Spearheaded by the Doha Film Institute, the new festival expands its long-running family-focused event of Ajyal, which ran for more than a decade during the same period, and will unfold in various locations across the Qatari capital of Doha including the Katara Cultural Village, Msheireb Downtown Doha, and the Museum of Islamic Art.
It will open on November 20 with a screening of Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful The Voice of Hind Rajab, about the killing of a young Palestinian girl by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip in early 2024, which was a recipient of the DFI’s grants program.
Beyond the film selection, the festival will also lay on a talks program featuring speakers such as former MSNBC broadcast journalist Mehdi Hassan; Egyptian journalist Palestinian rights advocate Rahma Zein, Emmy-nominated journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin as well as artists Yasiin Bey, Dana Al Fardan and Khalid Albaih; industry experts Sylvia Zakhary and Ahmed Al Baker among others.
“At the heart of Doha Film Festival is connection, from spontaneous conversations to the emotions we share, and the ways cinema reminds us of our humanity,” said DFI CEO and festival director Fatma Hassan Alremaihi.
“For the past 15 years, DFI has taken great pride in the extraordinary accomplishments of the filmmakers whose journeys we have shared so far. This year’s Doha Film Festival reflects Qatar’s growing creative ambitions and our deep belief in the power of cinema to unite and inspire.”
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