Your Guide to Film Festivals in the UAE

With three annual film festivals attended by Hollywood, Bollywood, Arabic and Asian movie stars, the UAE is starting to make a mark for itself in the international film scene.

Posted on

24 July 2013

| Last updated on 7 January 2018

Established in 2007, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival aims to create an exciting film culture throughout the Middle East. Presented each October by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) under the patronage of H.E. Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, the event is dedicated to curating outstanding programs to engage and educate the local community, motivate filmmakers and develop the growth of the regional film industry.

The Festival is committed to presenting works by Arab filmmakers in competition alongside those by key talents of world cinema, the Festival offers Abu Dhabi’s diverse and eager audiences a means of engaging with their own and others’ cultures through the art of cinema. A strong focus on the valiant voices of Arab cinema joins with Abu Dhabi’s role as a growing cultural capital in the Middle East and marks the Festival as a place for the world to see and gauge the pulse of recent Arab filmmaking.

Dubai International Film Festival

The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), inaugurated in 2004, is the leading film festival in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The festival has worked as an influential platform for Arab filmmakers and talent at an international level, by leading the cinema movement in the Middle East.

DIFF has established itself as a main international festival, while continuing to serve as a premier showcase event for Arab cinema, and contributing to the improvement and growth of the regional industry.

The festival has left a permanent impression on its guests, industry professionals and spectators, through its events, seminars and principal mandate of giving the best selection of cinema from all over the world. DIFF is a leader in promoting cultural understanding through innovative achievements in film.

Gulf Film Festival

The Gulf Film Festival is an annual non-profit cultural event that aims to celebrate the highest standards of Gulf cinema. The Festival takes place in April in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Festival aims to improve the local and regional film culture in the Gulf, creating better opportunities for filmmakers from the region to screen their films and cultivate future film projects.

The Festival marks to celebrate excellence in Gulf cinema and be a destination festival for the international film community to discover state of the art Gulf Cinema.

In giving the best of Arab cinema from the Gulf countries, the GFF will turn into a destination festival for the international film community to see state of the art cinema in the region.