After succeeding last year in drawing attention to Sudanese cinema, Egyptian film critic Andrew Mohsen will interview Sudanese director Amjad Abu Alala, winner of the Lion of the Future - "Luigi De Laurentiis" Award for a Debut Film at the Venice International Film Festival, as part of the ACC Talks, launched by the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) on Instagram. The interview will take place on Thursday, June 18 at 06:00 PM (GMT) and will stream on the ACC's official page on Instagram.
Amjad Abu Alala's debut feature film, You Will Die at Twenty, has been recently nominated for two awards at The Critics Awards for Arab Films; Best Feature and Best Screenplay, and the winners will be announced during the upcoming edition of the Virtual Cannes Market (June 22-26).
Streaming time of the fourth episode of ACC Talks in Arab countries:
Egypt, Sudan - 08:00 PM
UAE - 10:00 PM
Tunisia - 07:00 PM
Morocco - 06:00 PM
Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait - 09:00 PM
The ACC Talks is a series of live weekly interviews where a jury member from The Critics Awards for Arab Films and Arab Critics' Awards for European Films host interviews with international filmmakers. These talks will be available with Arabic and English subtitles across the ACC's social media accounts, as well as on its website, acc.film.
Amjad Abu Alala is a Sudanese director and producer, who is internationally recognized for his debut feature film, You Will Die at Twenty, that received the Lion of the Future - "Luigi De Laurentiis" Award for a Debut Film at the Venice International Film Festival, and the Advantage Association's award for being the most influential African film at the Festival. The film also won the El Gouna Golden Star for Best Narrative Film during its Arab world premiere at the El Gouna Film Festival. Abu Alala's directing credits include several award-winning short films, such as Teena, Coffee and Orange, Birds Feathers, and Studio that was supervised by the late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.
Egyptian film critic and programmer Andrew Mohsen writes for several news outlets, including El Film magazine and Filfan.com. Mohsen is also a film programmer of European films at the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF). He was appointed as the director of the Cinema of Tomorrow section of the CIFF and a member of the selection committee at the Festival for three editions. Mohsen is also the Artistic Director of the Aswan International Women Film Festival and was previously the Artistic Director of the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts. He is a member of the Egyptian Film Critics Association, and served as a jury member at several film festivals, including the El Gouna Film Festival, National Film Festival of Tangier, Tripoli Film Festival, and Luxor African Film Festival.
Organized by MAD Solutions in 2015, the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) is a nonprofit organization providing the filmmaking industry with a professional window to connect with their counterparts from all over the world through a number of events that it organizes. The ACC also provides networking opportunities with representatives of companies and institutions specialized in co-production and international distribution, among others. The ACC's activities vary between film markets, stands, and pavilions, networking sessions and one-on-one meetings bringing together Arab and foreign filmmakers, welcome parties, as well as meetings with international organizations and festivals, and the issuance of the Arab Cinema Magazine to be distributed at the leading international film festivals and markets.
Furthermore, newsletter subscription is now available on the ACC's website, allowing users to obtain digital copies of the Arab Cinema Magazine, as well as news on the ACC's activities, notifications of application dates for grants, festivals and offers from educational and training institutions, updates on Arab films participating at festivals, exclusive news on the Arab Cinema LAB, and highlights from the ACC's partners and their future projects.
The ACC also launched an English-language Arab Cinema Guide, available on its website, which is a comprehensive cinematic guide that comprises a variety of tools presented collectively for the first time to offer information on Arab cinema to filmmakers inside and outside of the Arab world. It also aims to facilitate filmmakers' access to international markets and help film industry representatives to easily identify Arab film productions.
