As part of the Arab Cinema Center's (ACC) weekly series of ACC Talks, Egyptian film critic Essam Zakaria will interview Sudanese director Suhaib Gasmelbari in the heels of the later's win of the Best Documentary within the Critics Awards for Arab Films. Streamed live on Instagram, the anticipated interview will take place on Thursday, 2 July, at 06:00 PM (GMT).
Streaming time of the fifth 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.
Suhaib Gasmelbari is a young Sudanese filmmaker who drew the international attention with his award-winning documentary Talking About Trees. The film landed world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), where it received Best Documentary award and the Panorama Audience Award. The film went on to receive several international awards including; El Gouna Golden Star for Best Documentary at El Gouna Film Festival, Tanit d'Or for Best Documentary at the Carthage Film Festival, the Best Documentary at Palm Springs International Film Festival, and the Best Documentary award at the Critics Awards for Arab Films, by the Arab Cinema Center (ACC).
Essam Zakaria is an Egyptian film critic, journalist and researcher who has written for several Arabic publications and is the author of ten books about Egyptian and foreign cinema. He has served as a jury member in many local and international film festivals. Currently presides the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentary and Shorts, his career highlights include being editor-in-chief of Nazra magazine, instructor at the film department of the American University in Cairo and lecturer on film at SEMAT Film School and Emad Eddin Studio Film Workshop.
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.
