2 months ago
Qatar’s Doha Film Institute (DFI) has unveiled nan 49 projects selected for nan 2026 version of its yearly Qumra gathering which has been moved online owed to nan Iran War.
The incubator arena will support 49 projects – spanning 27 features, 9 bid and 13 shorts – done online networking and mentorship pinch nan arena moving from March 27 to April 8.
Feature projects see Madness and Honey Days by Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji, who made waves pinch Iraqi Venice-selected, Oscar introduction Hanging Gardens; Hamlet From The Slums by Ahmed Fawzi-Saleh, whose Poisonous Roses was Egypt’s 2020 Oscar entry, and documentary Revolutionaries Never Die by Palestinian head Mohanad Yaqubi.
The 12th version had been owed to unfold successful Doha pinch Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Alice Diop, Faouzi Bensaïdi and Gustavo Santaolalla successful attendance arsenic nan events alleged Qumra masters, who springiness masterclasses and mentor filmmaker attendees.
Qumra is 1 of nan astir important meetings of nan twelvemonth for Indie board and producers from crossed the Middle East and North Africa, pinch nan arena besides inviting a smattering of non-MENA grantees.
Its 2025, attendees included Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake, which went connected to triumph Cannes’ Caméra d’Or and make it onto nan shortlist for nan Best International Feature Film Academy Award; Erige Sehiri’s Promised Sky, which opened Cannes Un Certain Regard, and won champion movie astatine Marrakech, and Suzannah Mirghani’s Cotton Queen, which debuted successful Venice.
The ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran war, which is now successful its 20th day, has rendered this intolerable owed to nan truth that Iran has launched hundreds of rocket and drone strikes connected its Gulf neighbors successful consequence to nan U.S.-Israel subject campaign.
“While we are profoundly saddened by nan existent circumstances successful nan region, nan determination to coming Qumra 2026 online reflects Qatar’s resilience and its enduring committedness to continuity, moreover successful nan look of important challenges,” said Doha Film Institute CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi.
“Our privilege remains to guarantee that filmmakers and their projects proceed to use from meaningful exchange, mentorship and connection. This year’s action highlights nan courageousness and ambition of today’s filmmakers and nan urgency of nan stories they are compelled to tell. We are proud to spot our federation powerfully represented alongside powerful perspectives from crossed nan world.”
Qumra 2026 Projects:
(all synopses provided by nan DFI)
Development – Feature Narrative
Speak (Tunisia, France, Italy, Qatar)
By Nejib Kthiri
A achromatic Tunisian boy strives to reclaim his sound successful a nine which would contradict him one.
The Peacock Queen (Qatar)
By Aisha Al-Jaidah & Kholoud Al-Ali
A Qatari relative and sister, mislaid successful a world beneath Qatar, who must find 3 magic pearls to return home.
The Guardian (Libya, Algeria, Canada, France, Qatar)
By Muhannad Lamin
Two brothers hunt a distant Libyan wadi for nan elusive waddan, a chaotic upland sheep; their only dream is simply a shepherd who refuses to lead them.
The Missing Planet (Egypt, Germany, Italy, Poland, Qatar)
By Marouan Omara & Tom Rosenberg
A paramedic searches Cairo for his missing wife, guided by dreams sent from nan early by his grieving daughter.
Girl of Wind (Tunisia, Qatar)
By Moufida Fedhila
Skateboarding offers Aida flight successful Tunisia, until her dying begetter returns, forcing her to face nan past and take her future.
When I Close My eyes, I See Your Eyes (Egypt, KSA, Qatar)
By Sameh Alaa
A woman’s life unravels aft her hubby dies abruptly successful Cairo; transporting his assemblage home, she finds her soul self.
Amara (Lebanon, France, Denmark, Germany, Qatar)
By Michelle Keserwany
Darine lives successful her ain imaginary bubble, which is burst erstwhile confronted pinch nan acheronian reality of a state successful crisis.
Development – Feature Documentary aliases Essay
Where Do I Belong? (Sudan, Qatar)
By Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad
Returning to a warfare area to reunite pinch his parents, a head confronts nan journeys of migration that shaped his third-culture childhood.
Onions to Forget nan Past (Lebanon, France, Qatar)
By Emilien Awada
Born of a forbidden love, I travel my parents’ concealed wartime letters, tracing a family history shaped by Lebanon’s divisions.
Portrait of A (Jordan, Germany, Qatar)
By Rand Beiruty
Over 7 years, ‘Portrait of A’ traces Andrea, a Roma immigrant, blending study and stop-motion animation to research love, betrayal, and motherhood.
Development – Short Narrative
Reset (Qatar)
By Dhoha Abdelsattar
In Doha, 2002, 12-year-old Noura’s Tamagotchi dies, triggering her first confrontation pinch nan inevitability of change.
A Disguised Practice (Qatar)
By Hamad Jassim AlFayhani
In an alternate Qatar, a history coach investigates his grandfather’s disappearance astatine oversea arsenic he inherits a destiny written successful water.
memorandum of knowing (working title) (Qatar)
By Ali Madi Alhajri
Mariam follows a propulsion toward a stranger, moving done suspicion and desire arsenic creation fractures nan statement betwixt find and silence.
Sara’s Shoes (Iran, Qatar)
By Fereshteh Parnian
An impulsive acquisition sends a moving mother connected a quiet, transformative day wherever she rediscovers herself beyond work and routine.
Until nan Rain Stops (Palestine, Jordan, Qatar)
By Jehad Hallaq
After a tragic attack, Haneen fights to prevention her Jerusalem home, forcing her to face some her condolences and nan unit closing in.
Development – TV aliases Web Series
Echoes (Lebanon, Qatar)
By Marie-Rose Osta
Myths don’t enactment successful nan past. They transverse into nan present, binding 2 women crossed time.
Arab Love (Tunisia, Egypt, KSA, Morocco, Qatar)
By Nejib Belkadhi
An online emotion betwixt an Egyptian mother and a Tunisian formation attendant ignites family wars, societal media violence, and intolerable choices.
The Gate of Resurrection (Palestine, Qatar)
By Firas Khoury
A grieving video editor, who sabotages authorities TV, is recruited by an Assassin sect and forced into revolt to prevention his brother.
Visions of nan After (Lebanon, Qatar)
By Ali Hamouch and Toufic El-Khoury
In a futuristic totalitarian Levant, Dalal finds herself astatine nan intersection of a crisis, a conspiracy and a rebellion.
Like a Feather successful nan Breeze (Egypt, Qatar)
By Sherif Elbendary
Although Tarek and Laila are some searching for their soulmates, they transverse paths without ever genuinely meeting, until Madame Salwa decides to measurement in.
In Production – Feature Narrative
Madness and Honey Days (Iraq, Canada, UK, Luxembourg, KSA, Qatar)
By Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji
Accused of treason for a statement onstage, a theatre character escapes execution by feigning insanity and is sent to a Baghdad asylum.
In Production – Feature Documentary aliases Essay
Souad and Lamine (Tunisia, Qatar)
By Mohamed Ali Nahdi
As Alzheimer’s erases his mother, a filmmaker explores his parents’ fierce love, wherever art, memory, and endurance intertwine.
Mother Street (Morocco, France, Qatar)
By El Amine Benhachem
Homeless Moroccan children fly nan streets of Casablanca for nan Goutte d’Or slum successful Paris, hoping to find a amended life.
Everything She Didn’t Say (Algeria,France, Qatar)
By Farah Abada
After my journalist begetter was murdered successful Algeria’s ‘Black Decade’, representation and humour uncover really our family learned to survive.
In Production – TV aliases Web Series
Legacy of Light: House of Wisdom (US, Qatar)
By Maha Al-Naemi and Spencer Striker
An AI-animated docudrama chronicles Al-Khwarizmi’s travel to nan House of Wisdom, wherever he invented nan algorithm and became a legend.
A Lover’s Manifesto (Lebanon, France,Qatar)
By Alfred Tarazi
An animated history of Beirut, tracing its translator from 1860 to 1982, forged by gyration earlier descending into civilian war.
Work-in-progress – Feature Narrative
People of Solitude (Algeria, France, Qatar)
By Tariq Teguia
Amjad, nan smuggler; Artemis, nan paleoanthropologist; and Faune, tasked pinch releasing a hostage, spell to nan Sahara, wherever bully and bad geniuses meet.
Hamlet From The Slums (working title) (Egypt, France, KSA, Qatar)
By Ahmed Fawzi-Saleh
Ahmed, nan boy of Cairo’s junkyard king, has to avenge his champion friend’s death, moreover if it intends confronting his father.
Work-in-progress – Feature Documentary aliases Essay
Rooted successful nan Wind (Iran, Qatar)
By Mohammad Sadegh Esmaeili
After her father’s execution, 12-year-old Jamileh must conflict to forestall an early matrimony and support her undocumented Afghan family together successful Iran.
My Mother & I (Iraq, Egypt, France, Qatar)
By Dilpak Majeed
A Yazidi female finds herself astatine a crossroads betwixt nan comfortableness of solitude and nan uncertain committedness of a caller chapter, arsenic changes statesman to travel done her once-quiet world.
Choreography of a Tyrant (Syria, France, Qatar)
By Qutaiba Barhamji
The find of censored images of Hafez al-Assad exposes really a azygous flaw tin unravel a cautiously engineered myth.
The Language of Water (Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Peru, Qatar)
By Jeissy Trompiz Albornoz
Jofris,the past speaker of an Indigenous language, is called location by his grandmother’s dreams, against his will.
Work-in-progress – Short Narrative
Where nan Sun Never Sets (Morocco, France, Qatar)
By Yassine Ouahrani
When a personification beloved to him leaves nan factory, a worker seeks a smuggler’s services to erase their memory.
Ghafleh (Lebanon, Qatar)
By Tony El Ghazal
Struggling to dress up for mislaid time, a watchmaker races to trade his daughter’s watch earlier their seconds tick away.
Sundial (Sudan, Egypt,US, Qatar)
By Atheel Elmalik
In nan midst of escaping nan warfare successful Sudan, teenage Najma must trust connected nan sun for 1 past chance to spot Ziyad.
A Donkey Will (Qatar, Uzbekistan)
By Majid Al-Remaihi
A retelling of a folktale, ‘A Donkey Will’ reimagines nan fig of Nasreddin, a folkloric jester figure, successful modern-day Bukhara.
Work-in-progress – Short Documentary aliases Essay
NESYAN (Qatar, Lebanon)
By Aya Al Blouchi
Following nan One, nan Other, and nan Ghost, exploring loss, memory, distance, and nan unseen beingness shaping separation.
Work-in-Progress – TV aliases Web Series
The Walled Off Hotel VR Experience (Palestine, Germany, Netherlands, KSA, Qatar)
By Amer Shomali
Trapped successful Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel, you and Ka nan parrot uncover life down nan wall wherever art, humour, and authorities meet.
Picture Lock – Feature Narrative
Pipes (Lebanon, Qatar)
By Karim Kassem
A retired h2o authority worker is called backmost to hunt for a missing tube causing havoc successful a quiet village.
Fuxi: Joy successful Four Chapters (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Qatar)
By Qiu Jiongjiong
Spanning 4 millennia, 4 feasts induce america to dine pinch nan living, dying, dormant and agelong dormant alike.
Radiesthesia (Chile, Argentina, Brazil,France, Qatar)
By Jairo Boisier Olave
Judith (15) possesses nan mysterious gift of uncovering h2o underground—until 1 time she finds thing other successful an aged well.
House of nan Wind (Cameroon, France, Belgium, Benin, KSA, Qatar)
By Bernard Auguste Kouemo Yanghu
Josette, 75, struggling pinch her loneliness successful Yaoundé, oversees nan building of a location for 1 of her sons surviving abroad.
Picture Lock – Feature Documentary aliases Essay
Revolutionaries Never Die (Palestine, Belgium, Qatar)
By Mohanad Yaqubi
An archive-based cinematic speech wherever Jocelyne Saab’s celluloid confronts representation and guidance done restoration and remembrance.
Bardi (Morocco, France, Qatar)
By Tala Hadid
Through nan hit of bodies, horses, particulate and song, ‘Bardi’ explores modern questions of masculinity and transformation.
When The News Breaks You (Qatar, Palestine, Greece, Lebanon, Turkey)
By Hamad Al Hajri
The struggle of journalists moving successful nan Middle East.
Picture Lock – Short Narrative
Light to Ashes (Qatar/France)
By Nadia Al-Khater
A young Bedouin writer and his sister’s quiet godforsaken life is disrupted erstwhile a wounded tribesman returns to camp.
Picture Lock – Short Documentary Or Essay
In The Silence After (Colombia, US, Qatar)
By Sebastian Delascasas
A boy returns location to attraction for his mother, filming nan past twelvemonth they will walk together.
Threads Of Support (Qatar, Uzbekistan)
By Olya Korsun
A poetic yet captious meditation connected silk weaving successful nan Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan.
Showcase – TV aliases Web Series
Captain Shedeed (Egypt, Qatar)
By Ramy El Gabry
An mean begetter becomes a reluctant leader to extremity a deadly microorganism and face nan costs of existent responsibility.
