By Manal Abdel Fattah
The activities of the “Ain Short Film Festival” will begin tomorrow, Wednesday, January 24, in the Sultanate of Oman, organized by the Ministry of Information, represented by the General Directorate of Electronic Media. The festival aims to enhance the artistic cultural movement of filmmaking in the Sultanate of Oman, and contribute to the development of creative content. Empowering young filmmakers.
The festival organizing committee confirmed the completion of all preparations and preparations from various technical and administrative aspects, to launch the activities of the first session of the “Ain Short Film Festival.” It also confirmed the readiness of the various festival facilities to start the activities and receive its patrons and guests from inside and outside the Sultanate of Oman.
In its first edition, 55 qualified films out of 71 participating films will compete in the “Ain Short Film Festival”, divided into three categories: 28 short narrative films, 22 documentary films, and 5 children’s films. It will be shown at VOX Cinemas in Oman Mall.
Over the course of four days, the festival will witness cultural sessions and training workshops that discuss screenwriting, directing, cinema production issues, and the reality of the film market in the region and the world, in addition to cinematic screenings shown for the first time and distributed into several areas: good citizenship, tourism, youth and sports, the technical and digital future, and intelligence.
Artificial technology, social networking sites, by examining their negatives and positives, Omani culture and identity, science and knowledge, and social issues.
An elite group of leading Omani and international artists and directors, as well as speakers specialized in the field of cinematic art, will participate in the festival, including Syrian director Najda Anzour and Emirati artist Dr. Habib Ghuloum, Bahraini director Ali Al-Najjar, Syrian screenwriter Diana Kamal Al-Din, German producer of Moroccan origin Nadia Yaqeen, Dr. Enas Yaqoub, a producer and director from the Kingdom of Bahrain, Saudi director Hanaa Al-Omair, Kuwaiti actor Abdelaziz Al-Nassar, Egyptian artist Ahmed Abdelaziz, and the Tunisian Academy. Dr. Munira Hajeij.
12 arbitrators from the Sultanate of Oman, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Tunisia, and Germany also participate in judging the submitted works, who are divided into three categories: narrative film, documentary film, and children’s films.
The festival is one of the initiatives of the Ain electronic platform of the Ministry of Information, which was launched in 2021 AD.
The festival, with its films, represents an important tributary of Omani creative content, and will provide the opportunity for professional and emerging filmmakers to compete for first places, for which prizes and cash amounts amounting to 8,000 Omani riyals have been allocated, in addition to An amount of 1,000 Omani Riyals is presented to the individual awards, which are: Best Screenplay Award, Best Actor Award, Best Actress Award, Best Editing Award, Best Cinematic Music Award, Best Effects Award, Best Cinematography Award, and Best Cinematic Makeup Award.
