The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) has unveiled the first batch of titles that will compete for its Muhr AsiaAfrica Awards, including Brillante Mendoza’s Thy Womb and Wang Bing’s award-winning documentary San Zimei - Three Sisters.

The line-up includes a mixture of veteran filmmakers, previous Muhr award winners and newcomers who will compete for prizes including the $50,000 best feature film award and $40,000 best film and special jury prizes.

Wang Bing’s San Zimei - Three Sisters won best film in the Orizzonti section of this year’s Venice film festival. Mendoza won the Muhr best film award at DIFF in 2009 for Lola.

Nashen Moodley, DIFF’s Director of AsiaAfrica Programmes, said: “The Muhr AsiaAfrica programme always offers fresh, unconventional and exciting cinema that would be otherwise hard to access in the region, and this year is a bumper crop.”

The line-up includes:

Your Beauty Is Worth Nothing, dir: Hussayin Tabak (Turkey)

Taboor, dir: Vahid Vakilifar (Iran)

My Afghanistan: Life In The Forbidden (Denmark-Afghanistan)

San Zimei - Three Sisters, dir: Wang Bing (China)

Inside, dir: Zeki Demirkubuz (Turkey)

Thy Womb, dir: Brillante Mendoza (Philippines)

The Great Kilapy, dir: Zeze Gomboa (Angola)

Today, dir: Alain Gomis (France, Senegal)

The Great North Korean Picture Show, dir: James Leong, Lynn Lee (Singapore)

Kahrizak (Four Views), dirs: Mohsen Amiryoussefi, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Bahman Kiarostami, Piroz Kalantari (Iran)

 

Kahrizak, Four Views, dirs:  (Iran)

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