Qumra projects build bridges, connect global audiences: Filmmakers

Doha: Feature narratives and documentaries from the Arab world nurtured at Qumra, the Doha Film Institute’s (DFI) annual talent incubator event, are building bridges and connecting global audiences to their bold themes, many underpinned by the searing pain of civil and political strife. 

At a media briefing, filmmakers associated with the projects shared their cinematic experiences and highlighted how DFI’s support helped them fine-tune their works and hone their cinematic instincts to depict their stories with conviction and confidence. The filmmakers also said the institute’s initiatives, especially Qumra, plays a central role in bridging cultures through cinema and providing greater visibility to film projects from the Arab world. 

Karim Bensalah, director of Blacklight (Algeria, France, Qatar), who currently lives in France, said he carries stories of his homeland and uses cinema as a medium to address personal and political connections. 

“Through film, I am trying to express my own identity, to depict what I really feel strongly inside and put it before the world. I try to open spaces from the mixed cultures I see and create bridges of understanding with people across the world.” 

Karima Saïdi, director of Those Who Watch Over (Belgium, France, Qatar) was inspired by her grandmother, a first-generation immigrant in Belgium. 

“The story of our ancestors who lived in this country and how perceptions have changed and evolved over the past three generations are intriguing. By setting my story in a multi-confessional cemetery, I am presenting another aspect of immigration – of those who have passed away far from their homeland, and about their loved ones who developed a new relationship with them.”

Al Baseer – The Blind Ferryman (Switzerland, Iraq, Qatar) by Ali Al Fatlawi, is as deeply political as it can get, yet no heavy-handed. Fatlawi said the story of a blind man who finds his way around the southern Iraqi marshes and his tryst with a mysterious woman is deeply inspired by his own life experiences. 

Similarly personal is the feature documentary, My Father Killed Bourguiba (Tunisia, Qatar) by Fatma Riahi. For Fatma, the coup of 1987 was not only a political event in Tunisia but also a personal family event that turned her and her family’s lives upside down. The film depicts her search of her father’s story, which began 15 years after his death. 

Taking real-life incidents to create a work of fiction is The Photographer (Syria, Qatar, Germany) by Anas Khalaf, who is based in Qatar. The film narrates the story of a photographer working in a unique position at the heart of the Syrian government during the revolution in 2011, who decides to defect, smuggling out with him the evidence he believes will bring down the regime of Bashar Al Assad. 

Filmmaker Asmaa Gamal presents a deeply inspiring theme with her project, A Dream to Fly (Egypt, Qatar) about a group of young people from the crowded slums of Cairo who escape their daily hardships on motorcycles by night.