Arab Cinema Center Launches Award for European Cinema

posted on: Aug 9, 2019

The first Arab critics’ award for European films will be announced at the 2019 Cairo Film Festival.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

BY: ALEX RITMAN

The Arab Cinema Center, the the umbrella banner representing a growing group of Arab film companies, has teamed with European Film Promotion to launch a new award for European cinema.

The Arab critics’ award for European films will see a jury of 30 of the most prominent and influential Arab film critics, put forward by the ACC, select the best European film from nominations by European national film institutions that make up the EFP’s membership.

“Since its inception, the Arab Cinema Center strives to exchange knowledge and cultures and promote films between different countries inside and outside the Arab world,” said Maher Diab and Alaa Karkouti, co-founders of the ACC. “We also aim to raise the appreciation of film criticism in the Arab world and highlight its role. In order to do so, we launched the critics’ award for Arab films, and then the achievement award for film critics, which honors Arab and foreign film critics who influence the Arab film industry, and now as a new step toward this goal, we have created the Arab critics’ award for European films in partnership with European Film Promotion.”

The inaugural award will be announced at the 2019 Cairo International Film Festival in November.

“We are delighted to take our cooperation with the ACC, which started with annual meetings between Arabian producers and EFP’s producers on the move in Cannes, a step further,” added EFP’s managing director Sonja Heinen. “The award helps us to promote and intensify the buzz for European films in the Arab world. We hope that it will help us cultivate a true and sustainable interest in European cinema in the region. We would also like to thank the Cairo International Film Festival for giving us the platform to present the award and inviting the winner as part of their European program.”