The 7th Abu Dhabi Film Festival announces its call for entries

The Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) has opened its call for entries for the seventh edition of the Festival, to be held October 24 - November 2, 2013. Entries will be accepted until July15, 2013. The Festival is powered by twofour54 Abu Dhabi.

ADFF promotes appreciation and understanding of the art of cinema amongst its enthusiastic multicultural audiences. It brings to Abu Dhabi the most outstanding films from around the world.

The festival contributes to Abu Dhabi being positioned as a creative hub by focusing on high quality, Arab cinema and by supporting and nurturing burgeoning local talent and filmmaking. In 2012, the Film Festival received over 3,500 submissions from 75 countries.

A World Not Ours (Lebanon)by Mahdi Fleifel (Black Pearl for best documentary, FIPRESCI and NETPAC awards at ADFF 2012) and Coming Forth by Day (Egypt) by Hala Lofty (Best Director from the Arab World and FIPRESCI award in the New Horizons competition, ADFF 2012) are two outstanding examples of Arab film that have gone on to receive accolades around the world after being premiered at ADFF.

Noura Al Kaabi, Chief Executive Officer of twofour54 said:  "The buzz and support from the film community around the Abu Dhabi Film Festival intensifies every year, mirroring the steep growth in Abu Dhabi's Film and Entertainment industry. The festival connects film-makers with Abu Dhabi's great locations, world-class facilities and incentives to work here."

Ali Al Jabri, ADFF Director, commented: "Over the last few years we have seen a substantial growth not only in the number of films produced but also in the quality of content from Arab filmmakers. One of the main reasons for this is our strong international film program. Showing films from different parts of the world exposes local and regional filmmakers to a variety of cinematic styles and techniques."

The Festival welcomes feature length or short narrative and documentary films from all over the world for its variety of competitive and non-competitive sections:

Narrative Competition - An international selection of feature-length fiction films.

Documentary Competition - An international selection of non-fiction feature-length films.

New Horizons Competition - An international selection of first and second feature-length narrative films.

Short Films Competition - An international selection of narrative and documentary short films.

Emirates Film Competition - devoted to short films from the UAE and GCC countries, this section presents some of the Gulf's leading filmmaking talent with an array of awards aimed at helping to support the continued development of the local film industry.

Showcase - A panorama of outstanding recent narrative and documentary features. Films in Showcase are eligible for the Audience Choice Award.

Our World - A panorama of incisive cutting edge films that raise awareness of environmental and/or social related issues.

Special Programs - Restorations and retrospectives, as well as specially curated programs and presentations focusing on exciting developments and trends in filmmaking around the world.
 
Films submitted to the festival should have had their first public screening after November 1st, 2012 and should not have any public screening in the Middle East before the screening at ADFF.

ADFF honors exceptional achievements in film with the Black Pearl Awards and with significant cash prizes. Prizes can often facilitate future projects from outstanding talents from around the globe.

Complete information regarding eligibility is available at www.adff.ae/submit.

SANAD, the development and post-production fund of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, is also accepting applications for second cycle grants from June 1 until July 1, 2013.  Full information is available at www.adff.ae/sanadfund.

For questions regarding entries email entries@adff.ae or call +971 2 401 1906.