Doha Film Institute’s (DFI) Qumra 2020 edition continues to provide various opportunities for filmmakers “in this period of new challenges”, featuring a series of discussions, exchanges of ideas, mentorship and advice from industry experts.
Scheduled from March 20-25, the annual event was cancelled to mitigate any potential risks associated with the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak but DFI proceeded with an adapted online mentorship and support format.
Qumra 2020 began on Friday with an array of online consultation sessions with Qumra Masters who shared their knowledge and expertise to filmmakers, aimed at taking their projects to the next level.
“A different kind of edition but in no way less insightful, engaging or supportive to filmmakers,” DFI said on its social media accounts.
According to DFI, the originally planned mentorship programme is taking place online until March 25, ensuring all projects will have their scheduled one-on-one hooked up
sessions.
As the 2020 programme introduces a new category geared towards web and TV series, the seven creators in this section present their DFI supported projects to a group of international industry professionals through individual and group advisory and pitching sessions.
“Focusing on taking a project from script to screen, specific attention will be paid to preparing pitches, developing their work, securing financing, understanding the global marketplace, creating marketing strategies and finding unique avenues for
distribution”, DFI added.
Over the past six years, DFI noted that Qumra has been a one-of-a-kind professional incubator crucial to the success of filmmakers from the Arab world and beyond.
The Qumra 2020 programme commenced with 46 selected projects from 20 countries as part of DFI’s mission to accelerate the success of filmmakers from the region and beyond and prepare them to bring their projects to audiences around the world.
In a statement, DFI chief executive officer Fatma Hassan al-Remaihi underscored the importance of Qumra to the community and participants saying that these 46 selected projects have remained a priority for DFI this year.
Qumra’s three core elements – mentorship (centrepiece of the programme), industry connections and match-made meetings, work-in-progress (WiP) features and shorts – take place online.
DFI noted that shifting to online was heavily supported by mentors who earlier received all the project information and started preparing for the mentorship meetings before the
cancellation.
These include the one-on-one mentorship sessions scheduled to happen at Qumra for all the projects such as the shorts, series projects and constitute script consultations, development, editing consultations, rough cut consultations, project coaching, festival strategies, sales and distribution strategies, DFI said.
Under the second core element, participants present their project to industry experts and discuss opportunities for collaboration in pre-arranged one-on-one meetings. A digital version of the Qumra Catalogue is also being created, outlining all the projects and will be shared with all industry and project participants.
A match-made programme will be created to establish connections between projects and the relevant industry experts. This will be supplemented with a digital Delegates Guide, containing all the contact information to facilitate the connections.
Under the WiP Features and Shorts, all WiP filmmakers have been requested to prepare a short introduction video to present their 20-minute excerpts. These will be shared with the selected industry delegates who will provide individual feedback to each project.
Each WiP film will be accompanied by the filmmaker’s information, biography, project materials and previous work through their personalised page on Festival Scope, an industry streaming platform. Access to the films will be granted for a designated
period (March 20-31).
Qumra 2020 Skype meetings.
