Un Certain Regard title My Sweet Pepperland and Mohammed Al Daradji’s In The Sands Of Babylon are among the 16 films to receive grants from the Abu Dhabi Film Festival’s Sanad fund.

The films received grants in Sanad’s post-production narrative category along with Naji Abu Nowar’s Theeb and Hicham Ayouch’s Fevers.

In its first funding cycle of 2013, Sanad also handed out post-production grants to three documentaries: Kasim Abid’s Whispers Of The Cities, Merieme Addou and Rosa Rogers’ Pirates Of Saléand The Camel Of The Mill, directed by Hamza Ouni.

In addition, seven projects receiving development grants:

  • Hala Khalil’s Nawara (Egypt);
  • Ahmed Magdy’s No One There (Egypt),
  • Rami Yasin’s A Dog’s Tail(Jordan),
  • Sabah Haider’s Beirut Solo (Lebanon),
  • Kamal Al Jafari’s The Passerby (Palestine),
  • Mohammed Abou Nasser and Ahmad Abou Nasser’s Casting (Palestine)
  • The Day I Lost my Shadow (Syria), directed by Soudade Kaadan.

Development grants in the documentary category include Baba And The Colonel (Libya), directed by Khalid Shamis, and Looking For Essam Abdullah(Egypt), directed by Yasser Naeim.

Sanad, which means ‘support’ in Arabic, awards a total of $500,000 in grants each year to Arab filmmakers.