ABU DHABI: The oil-rich Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi hosted its maiden film festival this week as it vies to become a regional cinema hub with plans to open a branch of the New York Film Academy.
“We will build the infrastructure necessary to enable you to shoot your movies here, Abu Dhabi Film Commission Chairman Abed Awwad told executives from regional and international production firms attending the Middle East International Film Festival which began on Sunday.
The festival, which ended on Friday, featured more than 80 films from 38 countries.
It was the first cinema festival to be held in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest of the United Arab Emirates’ seven members and its capital.
Neighboring Dubai, a leisure and business hub which is also part of the UAE, has already hosted three editions of its own international film festival.
But Abu Dhabi has been on an all-out drive to become a regional cultural capital, using its petrodollars to attract such cultural icons as France’s Sorbonne university and Louvre Museum.
A branch of the Sorbonne opened in Abu Dhabi last year and a Louvre satellite will join other prestigious museums, including a Guggenheim, as well as a performing arts center to form a “cultural district on the nearby island of Saadiyat.
Both the Guggenheim and the Louvre are due to be inaugurated by 2012.
“I can say that the decision to attract the cinema industry to Abu Dhabi has been taken, Awwad told AFP.
He said his commission, set up two months ago, would act as “go-between between the Abu Dhabi government and movie producers, to whom it would provide “practical assistance.
Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al-Nahayan, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, revealed on Sunday that a special fund would be created to finance movie production.
The fund “is in the process of being set up, and we tell production companies, ‘come and shoot your films here’, Awwad said.
Some scenes of the recently released US movie “The Kingdom, directed by Peter Berg, were shot in Abu Dhabi.
The controversial movie, which revolves around a probe of a 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, is being screened in the UAE, but it has been banned in two other Gulf Arab states – Kuwait and Bahrain.
Under a deal concluded last month, Warner Brothers will set up a theme park in Abu Dhabi.
A hotel, several multiplex cinemas and a joint film and computer game development fund will also be created as part of the deal struck between Warner Brothers, the Abu Dhabi Media Company and real estate developers ALDAR.
Abu Dhabi will also soon host a local branch of the prestigious American film and acting school, the New York Film Academy.
The academy’s education director, Michael Young, told AFP the academy will begin by offering a one-year program for aspiring producers and scriptwriters starting next February at a location provided by the Abu Dhabi government and equipped by the New York school.
Students will have to pay fees of $34,000, in addition to covering the expenses of the films they will produce.
Other programs on offer will include a four-week intensive course, Young said.
At a later stage, the academy will run a two-year program for students who would go on to pursue advanced studies in Los Angeles. Agence France-Presse
