AFAC shows support for dozen

The projects include seven feature film projects, three documentaries, one short animation and one short live action film.

Feature projects that are currently in production or post-production to receive AFAC funding include two from Egypt - El Said’s In The Last Days Of The City and Fawzy Saleh’s Poisonous Roses - and two from Lebanon; Ghassan Salhab’s The Valley, about a man who loses his memory, and Niam Itani’s Shadow Of A Man.

Three feature projects that are currently in development also received funding - Rabih El-Amin’s Trees Also Die (Lebanon), Ahmad Amine’s A Few Days In Syria (Jordan) and Palestinian director Bassam Jarbawi’s Solitaire King, which also took part in the Rawi Screenwriters Lab here in Dubai.

Documentary projects to receive support include Viola Shafik’s Scent Of A Revolution, examining the aftermath of Egypt’s revolution, Walou from Algeria’s Hassiba Belhadj and Asphalt from Lebanon’s Ali Hammoud.

Short animation In the Belly of the Beast, from Lebanon’s Elie Dagher, will also receive AFAC funding, along with live action short Personal Matters from Palestine’s Maha Assal.

The selection was judged by a panel comprsising Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri (The Attack), Tunisian critic and filmmaker Raja Amari (Buried Secrets) and Egyptian writer Wael Abdel Fattah.

“The jury selection process was not based on the geographical identity rather on the individual quality of each project,” the jury said in a statement. “We judged each project based on its structure, character development, its uniqueness and the visual aspect of the film the way it was described in the director’s statement.”