The festival program for the first offline Qatar Film Days event focuses on six full-length and eight short films from Qatar, Palestine, Morocco, Algeria, and other countries of the region. A series of film screenings will take place from 4th to 6th June in the public space Sevkabel Port. All screenings are free, but registration on the website is required.
The festival screenings will open with the satirical drama Gaza Mon Amour, directed by the Nasser twin brothers, and the continuation of the program includes the film by the award-winning Palestinian director Elia Suleiman It Must Be Heaven—a story about the search of identity and belonging, the last film by the famous documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi, Notturno, about people wounded by ethnic conflicts, a movie from the Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz, Nardjes A.—chronicling of a day in the life of a young Algerian activist, Before the Dying of the Light—Ali Essafi's film about the flourishing of independent culture in Morocco, and a drama about growing up in a society of brutal inequality and dreams of a different life, Mica by Ismaël Ferroukhi. The short film program showcases fiction, documentary, and animation works from Qatar, created with the participation of the Doha Film Institute.
In addition to films, guests will be able to see the Sevkabel Port space, which the VOLNA art team has transformed in the manner of the nature and architecture of Qatar. Film screenings will be complemented by a thematic educational program with discussion panels and lectures.
The event in St. Petersburg is the first offline Qatar Film Days event organized by the Cultural Creative Agency and the producer of the festival, the Beat Film agency in partnership with the Doha Film Institute, an independent cultural organization supporting the cinema of the MENA region.
Read more on the website.