The Dox Box Residency
The Dox Box has published its Newsletter for September, which is full of useful information for Arab filmmakers – and for us who want to stay updated on what happens in the Arab documentary world. The main story is that grantees has been awarded for the Fall Cycle. For filmmakers to stay and work on the completion of their films with assistance from professionals. The Berlin based Dox Box organisation:
”DOX BOX received 40 applications from 10 Arab Countries for its inaugural editing residency in Berlin. The Selection Committee granted three projects for Fall 2015. These projects demonstrated an impressively strong point-of-view and approach to the sociopolitical reality of their respective countries. Each has succeeded in employing pre-existing audio-visual archival footage within their dramatic narratives…
The Selection Committee members were filmmaker Hala Galal from Egypt; critic Dr. Ikbal Zalila from Tunisia; and producer and writer Rasha Salti from Lebanon. The Committee discussed and evaluated the eleven projects that passed initial eligibility. The eleven projects came from Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Syria. The evaluation included a careful examination of the submitted sequences and footage, the written treatments, the sociopolitical context of each project, as well as the filmmakers’ approaches and points-of-view.”
The Grantees are:
Fatima, or Notes On The Possibility of Permanent Revolution | 70 minutes | Mary Jirmanus Saba | Lebanon | 12-week Residency
My Head Ain’t a Graveyard | 45 minutes | Zaher Omarein | Syria | 8-week Residency
Fish Killed Twice | 70 minutes | Ahmed Fawzy Saleh | Egypt | 8-week Residency
In the same – among many interesting texts – there is a link to a 30 minutes long interview from 2007 with the pioneer of Syrian documentary, Omar Amarilay (photo), who died 2011. Watch it, listen to the fine man.
