Doha Film Institute Spring 2025: Funding News

Qatar’s Doha Film Institute (DFI) has selected 45 projects for its spring 2025 funding round, including recent Cannes film festival premieres Renoir and Once Upon A Time In Gaza.

Upcoming features to receive support include A Sad And Beautiful World, a Beirut-set romance from French-Lebanese filmmaker Cyril Aris, and Madness And Honey Days, from UK-based Iraqi filmmaker Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji.

DFI CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi said: “In a time marked by conflict, displacement and uncertainty, these stories offer urgently needed perspectives and affirm the role of film as a witness, a bridge and a call to empathy.”

DOHA FILM INSTITUTE SPRING 2025:

MENA – Feature Narrative – Development:

The Arab Apocalypse (Morocco, France, Qatar)
Dir: Samy Sidali
In Mohammedia, Simo, a young fisherman, sees the moon crack in two. From now on, the world is split in two—between those who are asleep and can’t wake up, and those who are watching over them.

MENA – Feature Narrative – Production:

Madness And Honey Days (Iraq, Canada, UK, Jordan, France, Qatar)
Dir: Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji
Facing execution for accidentally cursing President Saddam Hussein on stage, actor Salem pretends to be insane. In a Baghdad hospital, his greatest performance begins: staying mad enough to live.

Speak (Tunisia, Italy, France, Qatar)
Dir: Nejib Kthiri
Follows a Black Tunisian boy with progressive mutism who strives to reclaim his voice in a society that would deny him one. In 2023 Tunisia, amid a migrant crisis and rising xenophobia, twelve-year-old Walid finds solace in magic as he struggles with identity and discrimination.

Sari & Amira (Qatar)
Dir: A.J. Al-Thani
In the unforgiving sands of Wadi Sakheema, an outlaw Bedouin bandit couple stumble upon a mythical relic that holds the key to their survival but also awakens forces that could destroy them and their world.

MENA – Feature Narrative – Post-Production:

Round 13 (Tunisia, Cyprus, Qatar)
Dir: Mohamed Ali Nahdi
Kamel is a former boxing champion, happily married to Samia and deeply devoted to their only son, Sabri. Their lives are upended when Sabri is diagnosed with a malignant tumour.

A Sad And Beautiful World (Lebanon, US, Germany, Saudi, Qatar)
Dir: Cyril Aris
In this romance set in Beirut over three decades, two star-crossed lovers must decide whether to build a family and a path to happiness, despite the tragedies ravaging contemporary Lebanon.

Behind The Palm Trees (Morocco, France, Belgium, Qatar)
Dir: Meryem Benm’Barek
In Tangier, Mehdi’s relationship with Selma is shaken when he meets Marie, a wealthy French girl. Drawn to her glamorous lifestyle, he neglects Selma, pretending not to see that his choices will catch up with him.

The Arab (Algeria, France, Switzerland, Saudi, Belgium, Qatar)
Dirs: Malek Bensmaïl, Jacques Fieschi
Haroun is an old man who lives in Oran, Algeria. He has an incredible secret—he claims to be the brother of ‘the Arab’, a fictional character killed in Camus’ world-renowned Franceench book, The Stranger.

Safe Exit (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Qatar)
Dir: Mohammed Hammad
A young man suffers from severe PTSD due to witnessing his father’s murder as a child. Ten years later, he finds himself forced to hide a wanted killer.

Once Upon A Time In Gaza (Palestine, France, Germany, Portugal, Jordan, Qatar)
Dirs: Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser
A young student and charismatic drug dealer find themselves in a messy game of life, death, and revenge when a corrupt cop takes an interest in their operation.

People Of Solitude (Algeria, France, Qatar)
Dir: Tariq Teguia
In the Sahara, a smuggler, a paleoanthropologist, and a man on a rescue mission cross paths. Under the eye of the drone, they will go into the heart of the desert, where good and bad geniuses meet.

Who Wants The Rain Must Accept The Mud (Lebanon, France, Qatar)
Dir: Danielle Arbid
Suzanne, a widow in her sixties, meets Osmane, a young undocumented migrant worker, one evening in Beirut. They instantly fall in love.

Sa3oud Wainah? (Qatar)
Dir: Mohammed Al Ibrahim
A magic trick goes horribly wrong when two brothers attempt to replicate it years after learning it from their father.

Non-MENA – Feature Narrative – Post-Production:

Renoir (Japan, France, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Qatar)
Dir: Chie Hayakawa
An entrancing poetic journey about resilience, the healing power of the imagination, and a traumatised family struggling for connection.

Variations On A Theme (South Africa, Qatar)
Dirs: Jason Jacobs, Devon Delmar
An elderly goat herder falls victim to a scam promising financial reparations for her father, who was never paid for his service in WWII. As she waits for money that will never arrive, her family disrupts her routines on her 80th birthday and threatens to strip away the last of her independence.

The Prophet (Mozambique, South Africa, Qatar)
Dir: Ique Langa
A kind-hearted pastor struggles with his faith as he fails to grow his congregation. In secret, he seeks a solution; things seem to go well until they don’t.

MENA – Feature Documentary – Development:

Akal (Morocco, Qatar)
Dir: Basma Rkioui
In the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, shepherds and skiers face the harsh realities of climate change. A former skier-turned-director captures the stark contrast of a snowless ski resort, revealing the impact on the land and its people.

Unsettled (Palestine, Belgium, UK, Qatar)
Dir: Sami Odeh
After October 7th, an online movement redefined the Israeli-Palestinian narrative, using social media to challenge corporate and political interests’ intent on suppressing the truth.

MENA – Feature Documentary – Production:

Pure Madness (Tunisia, France, Qatar)
Dir: Inès Arsi
A filmmaker embarks on a personal journey to uncover the hidden story of her great-uncle, who disappeared in the 1970s in Franceance and was found in a psychiatric hospital.

Choreography Of A Tyrant (Syria, France, Qatar)
From 1970 to 2000, Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria with an iron grip before passing power to his son, Bashar. The film examines how the regime meticulously crafted its image through controlled media, exposing the propaganda mechanisms that sustained its rule.

Spiritual Diaries (Morocco, Qatar)
Dir: Rim Mejdi
Follows the coming of age of a young girl while documenting the influence of a spiritual movement on Moroccan society.

The Salt Of The South (Tunisia, France, Belgium)
Dir: Rami Jarboui
In Gabès, a coastal oasis suffocated by a chemical complex, a fishing family is torn between survival and escape. As land and sea collapse, a mother and her son resist in their own ways, holding on to the fading traces of home, memory and love.

MENA – Feature Documentary – Post-Production:

Do You Love Me (Lebanon, France, Qatar)
Dir: Lana Daher
An archival journey through Beirut, weaving together Lebanese cinema from the 1950s to the present day, and exploring the country’s psyche and its current state.

With Hasan In Gaza (Palestine, Germany, Switzerland, France, Qatar)
Dir: Kamal Aljafari
Three MiniDV tapes of life in Gaza from 2001 are rediscovered, standing as a testament to a place and time that no longer exists. What began as a search for a former prison mate from 1989 led to an unexpected road trip Franceom the north to the south of Gaza, accompanied Dir: Hasan, a local guide whose fate remains unknown.

Bardi (Morocco, France, Qatar)
Dir: Tala Hadid
Horses and men, dust and earth, saints and sinners. Between real and fiction, between the sacred and the profane, Bardi follows an itinerant brotherhood of horsemen across central Morocco.

Non-MENA – Feature Documentary – Post-Production:

Memory (Russia, France, Netherlands, Qatar)
Dir: Vladlena Sandu
The filmmaker, a survivor of the war in Chechnya, studies her traumatic memories in order to transcend and transform them via cinema.

Whisper Of The Wind (Iran, Qatar)
Dir: Mohammad Sadeq Esmaeili
Jamileh, an 8-year-old Afghan girl, races with her family to see their father one last time before his execution in Iran on drug smuggling charges.

Catching Them Young (India, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Qatar)
Dir: Pankaj Johar, Sunaina Kapoor
As India becomes increasingly right-wing, a school in one of its holiest cities starts preaching extreme idealism to impressionable young minds. While 11-year-old Satyarth chooses a liberal form of his religion, 12-year-old Hari starts believing and embracing Islamophobia.

MENA – TV Series – Development:

Like A Feather In The Breeze (Egypt, Qatar)
Dir: Sherif Elbendary

Al-Michelin (US, Jordan, Qatar)
Dir: Abdul-Rahman Sakr

How The East Was Won (Saudi, UK, US, Morocco, Jordan, Qatar)
Dir: Hannah Khalil

MENA – Web Series – Production:

Captain Shedeed (Egypt, Qatar)
Dir: Ramy El Gabry

Legacy Of Light: Echoes From The House Of Wisdom (Qatar)
Dir: Maha Al-Naemi

MENA – Shorts – Narrative – Development:

The Maker: A Journey Of Bisht (Qatar)
Dir: Abdulrahman Al-Mana

Inside The White Canvas (Qatar)
Dir: Amna Al-Binali

MENA – Shorts – Narrative – Production:

Goodbye Habibi (Palestine, US, Qatar)
Dir: Mike Elsherif

The Girl Who Cried: Bulldozer! (Palestine, Qatar)
Dir: Rami Alayan

I Fly Away From You All (Egypt, Qatar)
Dir: Sameh Alaa

Ghafleh (Lebanon, Qatar)
Dir: Tony El Ghazal

Santa Khan (Bahrain, Qatar)
Dir: Maryam Mir

The Last Laugh (Saudi, Qatar)
Dir: Nour Al Khadra

MENA – Shorts – Documentary – Production:

Hidden Journey (Sudan, Rwanda, Qatar)
Dir: Noura Adil Suliman

MENA – Shorts – Experimental/Essay – Development:

Threads Of Support (Qatar, Uzbekistan)
Dir: Fahad Al Attiyah

MENA – Shorts – Experimental/Essay – Production:

Imagine Me Like A Country Of Love (Yemen, Netherlands, Qatar)
Dir: Thana Faroq

Do It (Egypt, Qatar)
Dir: Yumna Al-Arashi