Cairo, Egypt | Sunday– 9 August, 2015:
through the 3rd Final Cut in Venice workshop that will be held at the festival’s next round (2 – 12 September 2015). The award comprises promotional and distribution services in the Arab world offered to one of the contending film projects in the workshop.
On the new partnership, Alaa Karkouti, CEO at MAD Solutions, stated, “We are constantly looking for unconventional ways to support Arab films in all production phases on both regional and international scales. Through this prize, we are looking forward to support the contending film projects at the workshop to help expand their distribution channels in the Arab world; which is its major film market from which it should come to light, as well as promoting them across the international filmmaking scene.”
Pascal Diot, Head of the Venice Film Market, says “We are very happy with this new collaboration with MAD Solutions in the 3rd edition of the Venice Final Cut workshop, not only because the collaboration will offer promotional and distribution services for one of the Arab projects, but also because MAD Solutions proved its originality, efficiency, and its continuous search for new ideas in one of the hardest jobs in the film industry: distribution. I am confident that their vision will contribute a lot to the workshop in our effort to increase international exposure for African and Arab cinema.”
As part of its long-term strategy to support and promote the Arab film industry, MAD Solutions offers a similar award for the winning film in the Open Doors initiative, taking place within the 68th Festival del film Locarno in Switzerland (5-15 August). This year, the initiative will focus on 12 film projects from the Maghreb region.
The Final Cut in Venice workshop will support Arab and African films for two days by screening the projects that were selected to take part in the workshop by a number of producers, distributers, and film festival programmers. The workshop will conclude with an award ceremony for the winning film projects, offering them post production services. The winning projects will be selected from among 50 projects that applied for the workshop. Six films have been shortlisted, and they are: Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim by Egyptian director Sherif El Bendary, House in the Fields by Moroccan director Tala Hadid, Roosters of Beirut by Syrian director Ziad Kalthoum, Zainab Hates the Snow by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, in addition to two Iraqi films: The Road to Paradise by director Attia Al Daradji and Divorce by director Hakar Abdul Qadir.
This year, MAD Solutions organized two editions of the Arab Cinema Center during Berlin International Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival. The center is functioning as an international platform for promoting Arab cinema, providing Arab filmmakers with a professional window of communication with international filmmakers through a number of networking events with representatives of co-production companies, organizations, and international distribution among other entities.
MAD Solutions is the first Pan-Arab independent studio and fully integrative marketing and creative consultancy for the Arab film and Entertainment Industry. Under the umbrella of MAD Solutions, the studio is supported by five pillars: MAD Marketing, MAD Content, MAD Distribution, MAD Culture and MAD Celebrity, which together are helping to usher in an exciting new generation of Arab filmmakers and entertainment talent.
MAD Solutions attends at least 20 film festivals (Arab and International), summits, and workshops annually including Cannes, Berlinale, ADFF, DIFF, and many more. Besides its energetic, contemporary approaches to collaborating with their MAD partners, MAD Solutions prides itself on having the most extensive and up-to-date database on the Arab film industry, spanning over 20 years of a rich heritage that is still growing to this day, despite the political and socio-economic challenges.
Realizing the potential growth of the film industry in the Gulf States, and the opportunities to hatch a pan-regional strategy, MAD Solutions has expanded to Abu Dhabi, UAE, focusing on the GCC in specific and the Arab world as a whole. Based in twofour54, this has allowed MAD Solutions to become industry partners with the free zone media hub, the incubator of creativity of talent in the region. Twofour54‘s vision is to enable the development of world class Arabic media and entertainment content, by Arabs for Arabs, which is in tandem with MAD Solution‘s mission and vision.