For the 5th year, El Gouna Film Festival (GFF) continues to build on collaborations and partnerships with key industry players with the goal to empower and support Arab filmmakers and cinema in the region and internationally. This year, GFF is happy to partner with Filmlab: Palestine for the second edition of the Sunbird Stories program, which was launched in partnership with Cinephilia Productions and Drosos Foundation.
A state-of-the-art development and production
program, the Sunbird Stories was created by Filmlab: Palestine and Cinephilia
Productions to instigate the growth of imaginative and thought-provoking films
for young audiences across the Arab world.
For its 2nd edition, Sunbird Stories will work on the development
of five narrative short films, shortlisted from a number of submitted projects,
by emerging Arab filmmakers in the genre of children, teen, family and coming
of age stories. Sunbird Stories will offer the filmmakers of the selected
projects advanced project development and training as well as production
packaging and financial and distribution plans.
Submissions for the program are now closed, and the selection
process is currently in process. Sunbird Stories received a total of 51
submissions from different countries across the Arab world as follows: 37
submissions from Egypt, five submissions from Lebanon, three submissions from
Palestine, three submissions from Jordan, two submissions from Iraq and one
submission from Sudan. It is worth noting that 20 female filmmakers submitted
their projects this year.
After the shortlisted projects are announced, a jury of industry
professionals will organize a table-read for each of the five projects,
followed by a Q&A session during the forthcoming edition of CineGouna
Platform (CGP), set to take place October 16-21, 2021.
Winners will be announced at the closing ceremony of CGP, where two projects will be awarded, each, $20,000 worth of production and post-production services offered by Drosos Foundation.
Connect with us