(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Doha Film Institute (DFI) has successfully kicked off the adapted online mentorship and support programme for the 2020 edition of Qumra, its annual talent incubation event.
The online format of the programme was introduced in lieu of the event which was cancelled amid global COVID-19 outbreak, a decision made as part of DFI's contribution to the responsible management and prevention of further spread of the virus in Qatar, the Institute has said.
Mentorship meetings, industry connections and match-made meetings and Work in Progress (WiP) features and shorts are the core elements of the online programme.
The main centrepiece of Qumra's programme and value, the online mentorship meetings include one-on-one mentorship sessions for all the projects and constitute script consultations, development, editing consultations, rough cut consultations, project coaching, festival strategies, sales and distribution strategies. Following the original schedule of Qumra 2020, the meetings started on Friday and run until Wednesday.
The industry connections and match-made meetings are pre-arranged one-on-one meetings in which participants present their projects to industry experts and discuss opportunities for collaboration. A digital version of the Qumra catalogue has been created outlining all the projects and shared with all industry and project participants. In addition, a match-made programme has been created to link projects with relevant industry experts, supplemented with a digital delegates guide, containing all the contact information to facilitate the connections.
All WiP filmmakers have been requested to prepare a short introduction video to present their 20-minute excerpts to be shared with selected industry delegates who provide individual feedback to each project. Each WiP film is accompanied by the filmmaker's information, biography, project materials and previous work through their personalised page on Festival Scope, an industry streaming platform. Access to the films is granted starting Friday until end of this month.
Over the past six years, Qumra has been a one-of-a-kind professional incubator crucial to the success of filmmakers from the Arab world and beyond. The Qumra 2020 programme includes 46 selected projects from 20 countries.
Four feature documentary projects currently in the development phase are receiving online consultations this week. They include 'The Flower Men by Yousra Ishaq, 'Kashkash by Lea Najjar, 'Machtat by Sonia Ben Slama, and 'Searching for Kikhia by Jihan Kikhia.
Eleven Qumra feature narrative projects currently in development are also receiving invaluable online consultations including 'Down and Out in Doha by Waheed Khan and Fahad Al Kuwari, 'Nezouh by Soudade Kaadan, 'Omar La Fraise by Elias Belkedar, 'Vanishing by Lucien Bourjeily, 'Sabah by Ben Robinson, and 'Queens by Yasmine Benkiran, among others.
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