Qatar's Tribeca looks to create regional film hub2009-08-24

The Doha Tribeca Film Festival, Qatar's first film event, said on Monday it wants to create a hub for regional filmmakers in the Gulf Arab state, through education initiatives and community involvement.

New York's Tribeca Film Festival was founded by actor Robert De Niro after the September 11 attacks and Qatar is the first venue to host the event outside its home country.

The festival, which starts October 29, will host around 30 films, eight to ten of which will be Middle Eastern Arab films.

"We want to create a hub where filmmakers can stay," Amanda Palmer, executive director of the festival said, adding: "We are also aware that there's very different gradations of film making abilities at the moment."

"There are also existing filmmakers so we need to give them a higher level of engagement and education, workshops, scrip-writing developments, producer-investor networking and distribution," she said, adding that emerging, aspiring and established filmmakers need to be equally supported.

The United Arab Emirates has become a place for budding filmmakers in the region to showcase their creations, with Hollywood, Bollywood and Arab cinema stars arriving at its annual film festivals in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Dubai has also created a freezone for film establishments and production companies to set up office.

Qatar has so far only hosted the Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival, but the world's largest exporter of LNG aims to mold itself into a cultural capital for the region.

The New York festival was created as a way to rejuvenate lower Manhattan after the 2001 al Qaeda attacks and has become a showcase for international films.

Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia, is an ally of the United States that hosts the U.S. Central Command at a huge military base on the outskirts of Doha. In the media world, it is best known as the home of the Al Jazeera Network, arguably the dominant news service for the Arabic-speaking world.

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