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Screen International has named the five actors and filmmakers selected for Arab Stars of Tomorrow 2024, the eighth edition of the new talent programme for emerging Middle East and North Africa talents.

This year’s line-up includes Moroccan actress Oumaima Barid; Saudi actress Maria Bahrawi; Yemeni producer Mohsen Alkhalfi; Egyptian actor Essam Omar; and Jordanian writer-director Zain Duraie.

Arab Stars of Tomorrow celebrates Arab talent from across the Mena region and highlights the hottest up-and-coming actors, writers and directors who are primed to make their mark in the international industry.

Click on the links below to read the profiles of this year’s stars.

My Driver And I by Saudi director Ahd Kamel is set to screen not once but thrice as part of the Arab Spectacular Program of the fourth Red Sea International Film Festival, which will run from December 5th to the 14th.

The film is scheduled to hold its world premiere screening at 7 pm on December 6th in the Cultural Square’s Auditorium. From there, the film will screen twice more, once on the following day at 4:15 pm and again at 9:30 pm on December 14th at Cinema 4 of the Cultural Square.

My Driver And I follows Salma, a young, affluent, and rebellious Saudi girl whose family hires a Sudanese man named Gamar to drive her to and from her day-to-day activities.

Initially adhering to a simple employer/employee dynamic, Salma and Gamar’s relationship quickly evolves into a friendship that bonds them through her teenage years and beyond, but...

Exclusive: Dubai-based global management and production company 75East has signed Sudanese writer-director and producer Amjad Abu Alala.

The director first broke out internationally with debut film You Will Die At 20, which won Venice’s Luigi de Laurentiis Award for Best First Feature in 2019.

He was among a wave of filmmakers to emerge out of Sudan in the wake of its 2019 revolution, ending the 30-year rule of dictator Omar al-Bashir, although hopes for a democratic, civil society have since been shattered by the civil war involving two rival military factions.

You Will Die At 20 was shot in Sudan in December 2018 in the early days of the popular uprising against, with the struggles of the film’s protagonist described as a metaphor for the Sudanese people’s fight for democracy.

Following its Venice prize, the feature played at a raft of top international festivals, including TIFF and Rotterdam, winning more than 25 awards,...

Starting off its festival tour on a high note, Ahd Kamel‘s Saudi feature My Driver And I has been selected to hold its world premiere as part of the Arab Spectacular Program at the fourth Red Sea International Film Festival, which is set to run from December 5th to the 14th in Saudi Arabia.

The film follows Salma, a young, privileged, and rebellious Saudi girl whose family hires a Sudanese man named Gamar to drive her to and from her day-to-day activities.

Initially adhering to a simple employer/employee dynamic, Salma and Gamar’s relationship quickly evolves into an intimate personal friendship that bonds them through her teenage years and beyond, but their friendship is put to the test when Salma gets older and starts taking the wheel.

Commenting on her film, director Ahd Kamed stated, “The film opens a window on a certain strand of late 20th-century Saudi society,...

Saudi Arabian film industry pioneer Faisal Baltyuor is opening the first arthouse cinema in Riyadh in what amounts to a milestone in the kingdom’s moviegoing trajectory ever since Saudi lifted its 35-year ban on cinema in late 2017.

The plush state-of-the-art 80-seat venue, called Cinehouse, is set to open in the Saudi capital later this month. The symbolic opening film will be a 1975 documentary titled “Development of Riyadh City” by Saudi helmer Abdullah Al-Muheisen. Before the religion-related Saudi ban on cinema went into effect, Al-Muheisen had been instrumental in laying the groundwork for the embryonic Saudi film industry. His vast body of work delved into social and humanitarian issues.

A curated program comprising local and international films at Cinehouse will follow after the “Development of Riyadh City” doc.

“For our opening film we actually went back to our Saudi film industry legacy,” said Baltyuor, a former CEO of the Saudi...

It’s a momentous Cannes for Cairo-based film professionals Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab as they mark the 15th anniversary of the creation of marketing and distribution company Mad Solutions and the 10th anniversary of spin-off the Arab Cinema Center (Acc).

Under these banners, the pair have been at the forefront of promoting Arab cinema internationally and played a part in growing its prominence on the world stage.

Acc kicks off its 10th Cannes program on Friday with a panel entitled “The Arab New Wave: The Actors” on the market’s Plage des Palmes venue.

Speakers on the panel will include iconic Egyptian actress Yousra, Mbc Studios Saudi Arabia General Manager Zeinab Abu Alsamh, top Lebanese TV presenter Raya Abi Rashed, Egyptian superstar Ahmed Malek and Yagoub Alfarhan, star of Saudi Arabia’s first film in Official Selection Norah as well as casting director Cassandra Han.

The swanky location and...

Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia and Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters lead the nominations for the 8th Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will be held during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

Both features picked up seven nominations apiece for the awards, focused on Arab films that were produced and premiered outside of the Arab world in 2023. Overseen and run by the Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc), it was voted on by 209 critics from 72 countries and the winners will be announced during Cannes on May 18.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

This year’s nominees range from Sudan,...

Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated documentary Four Daughters and Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s Lupita Nyong’o-EPed drama Goodbye Julia lead the nominations in the eighth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

Hybrid work Four Daughters, exploring the story of a real-life Tunisian mother who lost two of her daughters to Isis after they were radicalized by a local preacher, world premiered in Competition in Cannes last year.

The film won Cannes’ Golden Eye for Best Documentary and also went on to be nominated for Best Documentary at the 2024 Academy Awards.

Kordofani’s Khartoum-set drama Goodbye Julia was also at Cannes in 2023, making history as the first Sudanese film to play in the festival across its 76 editions, with a debut in Un Certain Regard. It represented Sudan at in the 2023-24 Oscar race but was not nominated.

Set against the backdrop of the 2011 South Sudan Independence referendum,...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best International Feature Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’

Weekly Commentary: The United Kingdom is poised to win its first Academy Award with Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and what a deserved win it will be.

But while I have the floor: it’s time for the...

Mohamed Kordofani’s Sudanese title previously opened strongly in Egypt.

Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia, which became the first Sudanese feature to ever play at Cannes earlier this year, has achieved another first following its release across the Gulf.

The film has recorded box office of $349,000 from 27,000 admissions following its release by Mad Solutions in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain on December 7 and in the UAE on December 14 across a total of 84 screens. This is a record for a non-Egyptian or non-Saudi arthouse film in the Gcc.

Saudi accounted for 40% of total takings from 37 screens while the UAE represented 30% of revenues from 27 screens.

Shortlist of 15 films to be announced December 21, nominations out on January 23, 2024.

The Academy has announced eligible features in the categories of international feature film, animation, and documentary for the 96th Academy Awards on March 10, 2024.

The shortlist of 15 films will be announced on December 21, and the nominations announcement is January 23, 2024.

International

Eighty-eight countries or regions have submitted films eligible for consideration in the international feature film category. An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (more than 40 minutes long) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track. Namibia is a first-time entrant.

Academy members...

Seven films backed by Fund have been submitted to the Academy Awards’ international feature category

One of the targets for the Red Sea Fund when it launched three years ago was to “be part of the Oscars somehow by 2027, according to fund manager Emad Eskander.

“But it happened this year – we have seven films shortlisted for the Oscars,” Eskander told a Red Sea panel session, to loud applause from the audience.

The seven Red Sea-backed films submitted in the international feature category are Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, submitted by Tunisia, Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia (Sudan), Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji...

The film will be based on the true story of a massacre at a military camp in 1998.

A film based on the true story of a massacre in Sudan is being lined up by the producers of Cannes award-winning drama Goodbye Julia.

Mohammed Alomda of Sudanese production company Station Films has revealed that filming will take place in 2024 on Specters of AlHoot, which will mark the feature directorial debut of Ahmad Mahmoud. Delivery is expected in 2025.

“This is a true story about three teenagers who flee from a military boot camp to attend a concert, but come back to face...

The third edition of the Red Sea Film Festival, taking place in Jeddah between Nov. 30 – Dec. 9, will be the culmination of a highly successful funding cycle for the Red Sea Film Foundation. Created in 2019 following the lifting of Saudi Arabia’s 30-year cinema ban, the foundation aims to support the local and regional film industry through the organizing and championing of the festival, plus a focus on education and grants.

In 2021, the foundation launched the Red Sea Fund, a financing arm focused on supporting emerging filmmakers and established directors from the Arab world and Africa. Grants were distributed between projects in development, production and post-production. The fund supported 94 projects in the first year and over 250 films in the two years since, including films by acclaimed filmmakers such as Abderrahmane Sissako, Haifaa Al-Mansour and Kaouther Ben Hania.

The impact of the fund was felt throughout the biggest festivals in the world...

Mohamed Kordofani’s Khartoum-set drama Goodbye Julia made history at Cannes earlier this year as the first Sudanese feature to play in the festival across its 76 editions.

Six months on, the film is achieving a new first at the Egyptian box office.

The drama took the top slot on its opening day on October 25 on just nine screens, ahead of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which was on its second week on release on around 25 screens.

Widening out to some 25 screens, Goodbye Julia drew 13,135 spectators for a gross of $33,650 in its first week, according to locally collated figures.

By comparison, Killers of the Flower Moon went on to take $41,000 in the same week, for a total Egyptian gross of $102,000 by the end of its second week on release.

As of November 6, Goodbye Julia had grossed $56,637 in total.

Exploring the events leading up the 2011 schism between Sudan’s southern and northern populations,...

Chicago – The 59th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) announced its competitive award winners on October 20th 2023, and the recipient of The Gold Hugo in the International Feature Film Competition – the festival’s top honor – is ‘Explanation for Everything” (directed by Gábor Reisz), a coming-of age story.

Picking up the Festival’s Silver Hugo in the International Feature Film competition is “The Delinquents” (directed by Rodrigo Moreno). In the New Directors Competition, Amr Gamal’s “The Burdened” takes the Gold Hugo and Ena Sendijarevic’s “Sweet Dreams” takes the Silver Hugo. The complete list of honorees is below.

“This year’s winning selections truly reflect a global perspective, giving audiences a glimpse into lives and lived experiences they might not have had the opportunity to explore before,” said Chicago International Film Festival Artistic Director Mimi Plauché. “Hailing from every region on the planet from Hungary to Mexico, Argentina to Yemen, Sudan to the U.

Sudan has submitted Mohamed Kordofani’s Khartoum-set drama Goodbye Julia for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

The film made history in Cannes this year as the first Sudanese film to play in the festival after it was selected for Un Certain Regard.

Its premiere took place just weeks after fighting broke out in Khartoum due to a clash between rival generals, which has led to the deaths of 5,000 people and uprooted seven million people.

Since Cannes, the film has also played at Karlovy Vary in its Horizons section and will make its Mena premiere at Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival in October ahead of a theatrical release in the country on October 25. It has also been selected for the BFI London Film Festival.

The selection was made by the Sudanese National Committee which is operating in exile.

Alaa Karkouti at Mad Solutions, which is handling world sales,...

Prior selections Close, Drive My Car, The Worst Person In The World all garnered international feature film Oscar submissions.

Aki Kaurismäki’s Cannes jury prize winner Fallen Leaves and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses starring Cannes best actress winner Merve Dizdar – both Oscar submissions this year – are among the international line-up at the upcoming 59th Chicago International Film Festival (October 11–22).

Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Pictures Of Ghosts are two other Cannes selections to feature in the roster, while Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist and Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias both launched in Venice.

4Dplex Experiences Added In Cambodia, Thailand

Korean tech firm Cj 4Dplex has struck a deal with Thailand’s Major Cineplex to add two ScreenX locations in Cambodia and Thailand. One will be located at the Aeon Mall Mean Chey, have almost 500 seats and have a 75-foot-wide central screen, making it the largest ScreenX auditorium in Southeast Asia. The other will be at Bangkok’s ICONSiam Mall location, debuting on July 27.

ScreenX is a multi-projection system with an immersive 270-degree field of view. That creates a virtual reality-like setting with cinema quality resolution. Major’s first ScreenX launched in 2022 at its Siam Paragon location in central Bangkok.

“We’ve received amazing reactions and feedback from our moviegoers for ScreenX in Thailand and expect to generate the same response at our Cambodia location,” said Vicha Poolvaraluk, CEO, Major Cineplex.

The two companies previously partnered on 4Dx installations, where viewers experience motion, vibration,...

Films Boutique, the Berlin-based company behind “Pacifiction” and “The Burdened,” has come on board three international movies slated for the Cannes Film Festival. These include a pair of films set for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, “Terrestrial Verses” and “The Buriti Flower,” as well as “Tiger Stripes” which will bow at Critics’ Week.

“Terrestrial Verses,” directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, is the sole Iranian film premiering in the Official Selection. The movie marks the first collaboration between these two critically acclaimed directors.

Khatami previously wrote and directed “Oblivion Verses” which won best screenplay and the Fipresci prizes at Venice in 2017. Asgari, meanwhile, previously directed “Until Tomorrow” which premiered at Berlin last year, and presented two shorts at Cannes, “More Than Two Hours” in 2013 et “Il Silenzio” in 2016.

While the plot remains under wrap, the film’s title is a reference to a poet by famed Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad.

Mohamed Kordofani’s debut feature will premiere in Un Certain Regard.

Pan-Arab outfit Mad Solutions is moving into international sales and has acquired worldwide rights to Mohamed Kordofani’s debut feature Goodbye Julia, the first Sudanese film ever to be selected by the Cannes Film Festival.

The film will receive its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival, which announced its lineup today.

Set in Khartoum ahead of Sudan’s division into two separate countries in 2011, the drama explores the differences between their two populations through two women hailing from the north and south of the country.

Films Boutique are close to further deals in China and Italy.

Animated sci-fi film White Plastic Sky has scores sales in Europe and Asia by Films Boutique following its world premiere at last month’s Berlinale.

The Berlin-based sales agent has sold the Hungarian feature to Kmbo for France and Flash Forward Entertainment for Taiwan. Films Boutique is in talks for the feature at Hong Kong Filmart and deals in China and Italy are expected to close shortly.

Directed by Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó, the film is set in 2123 and follows one man’s risky attempts to save his...

Amr Gamal‘s The Burdened added another accolade to its trophy shelf on Saturday, February 25th, winning the Amnesty International Film Award — which comes with a cash prize of €5,000 — during the Independent Juries Award Ceremony that was held as part of the activities of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).

The film’s crew was present at the ceremony, including the director, who received the award. The Berlinale also announced on the same day that The Burdened placed second in the running for the Panorama Section‘s Audience Award, which Gamal will be honored for in a second ceremony that will be held on February 26th.

“I am truly humbled by the audience’s positive reception to the film. The Burdened was a labor of love, dedication, and persistence to shed light on one story of many in a country under fire. I’m glad that the...

Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s crowd-pleasing debut, 20,000 Species of Bees, a tender look at a 8-year-old Spaniard who begins to transition and the impact that has on the child’s family, was among the standouts of this year’s Berlinale.

The film, which screened in competition at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, won the prize for best film from the guild of German Art House Cinemas as well as the jury award voted on by readers of Berlin daily newspaper the Berliner Morgenpost.

Lila Aviles’ Totem, another Spanish-language film told from the perspective of a young child, this time a Mexican girl watching a chaotic family birthday gathering for her father, a terminally-ill cancer patient, was the big winner of Berlin’s Ecumenical Jury, which gave it the top prize for best film in competition this year. Best Panorama pick from the Ecumenical Jury went to Midwives from French director Léa Fehner,...

D. Smith’s Sundance audience award winner Kokomo City has won over Berlin cinemagoers as well, winning the audience award for best documentary in Berlin’s Panorama section. Apolline Traoré’s Sira won the audience prize for best narrative feature.

A raw depiction of the lives of four Black trans sex workers fro New York and Georgia, Kokomo City won both the audience prize and the Next Innovator Award for D. Smith in Sundance. Chilean documentary The Eternal Memory, a look at Alzheimer’s disease from director Maite Alberdi, and the follow-up to her 2020 Oscar-nominated The Mole Agent, was the documentary runner-up among Panorama audience voters, with Thierno Souleymane Diallo’s The Cemetery of Cinema, an attempt to rediscover the birth of filmmaking and the lost film heritage of his home nation of Guinea, took third place.

Sira, set in Burkina Faso, follows the young eponymous nomad woman who refuses...