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Doha aims at regional domination with Tribeca Film Festival

There’s probably little that Qatar can’t do these days

M. Taufiqurrahman (The Jakarta Post)
Doha
Sun, October 31, 2010

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Doha aims at regional domination  with  Tribeca Film Festival

T

here’s probably little that Qatar can’t do these days.

Thanks to its massive export of liquefied natural gas from its vast offshore fields, in recent years Qatar has made a string of high profile investments including buying the London luxury department store Harrods, buying stakes in the British supermarket Sainsbury and the London Stock Exchange as well as paying for the London Bridge Tower, a skyscraper designed to be the tallest building in London, scheduled to be finished in 2012.

Qatar, a country with a population of 1.53 million people and with a sovereign wealth fund which now controls over US$70 billion in assets, has also recently made a potentially viable bid for the 2022 soccer World Cup.

Another high-profile investment that Qatar has made in the past two years is bringing the New York-based Tribeca Film Festival to the country, an effort aimed at making Doha a hub for the film industry in the Middle East and to raise the profile of local filmmakers, whose output has been low in recent decades.

Actress Salma Hayek attends the opening night gala during the 2010 Doha Tribeca Film Festival in Doha on Oct. 26. Reuters/Mohammed Dabbous

The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2001 by actor Robert De Niro, producer Jane Rosenthal and philanthropist Craig Hatkoff as part of an effort to revive the economy in Lower Manhattan which was reeling from the 9/11 attack.

Over the years, the festival has grown to become one of the most highly regarded film festivals in the world with some of major Hollywood blockbusters like Spiderman 3, Shrek Forever After and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen all making their world premiere in the festival.

In the Middle East, the Doha Tribeca Film festival (DTFF) has an even higher purpose, educating filmmakers in the region so that they can make good quality films that could put the Middle East on the global cinema map. This educational project could also in some way help dispel the notion that the region has simply become the hotbed of terrorists, including those who flew the planes into the World Trade Center in 2001.

 “With so many films coming out of this region, the world will not only see Muslims as terrorists but it will show that they can have other roles like those who live in the western world,” said Mohamad Ali Ibrahim, a young Qatari filmmaker who attended the premiere of Outside the Law, a French film directed by French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb.

In fact the theme of Muslims and their relationships with the modern world is widely discussed in the festival so that one of the most discussed film in the program is Shahada. Directed by German-Afghani director Burhan Qurbani, this film tells the story of three German-born Muslims who struggle to find their place between faith and modern life in contemporary Western society.

The festival also aims to dispel the notion that Muslim society has relegated women as second-class citizens.

One of the festival jury members, actor and producer Salma Hayek said she was proud of the fact that 60 percent of movies presented in the festival competition were directed by women.

“Imagine if the Arab world can give an example to give stronger voice for women. You know so far you only have one woman winning the best director title in Cannes and in the Academy Awards,” Hayek told reporters.

For Canadian director Mira Nair the DTFF provides an opportunity for the Arab world to find its own voice and then broadcast it to the world.

“For decades we didn’t have a definitive story about this civilization and this festival is training filmmakers to tell stories from here. This film festival is more than a celebration of cinema,” Nair said.

Nair’s “Maisha” Filmmaker Labs is one of the cultural partners for the Doha Film Institute, chaired by Qatari Princess Sheika Al Mayasha bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the chief patron for the DTFF.

And as is obvious from its line-up of films, the DTFF is not just a celebration of cinema. The majority of films in the festival are good quality socially-conscious films produced in the Arab world and the festival committee has cut back on Hollywood-style entertainment.

Even when it decided to screen Hollywood films, the DTFF opts for left-field films like the Davis Guggenheim-directed documentary on the failure of the American education system Waiting for “Superman”, the Julian Schnabel-directed war story from Jerussalem Miral and the story of GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff titled Casino Jack with Kevin Spacey playing the title role. This is the international premiere of Casino Jack.

The absence of some of Hollywood’s big names in the festival, including De Niro himself who had to skip the festival to shoot his latest film, perhaps makes the red carpet moments somewhat less spectacular.

But with some of the female actors from Arab nations, along with their handlers and entourages dressing quite liberally with Hollywood-style glitz and glamour, then festival participants might quite understandably get the feeling that they were at a gala for a celebrity film festival in America or Europe and not in a place that some still consider to be one of the more conservative regions of the world.

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