Qumra
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Masterclasses at Qumra 2024 by Leos Carax, Claire Denis and More
Launched ten years ago by the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is an industry convention held annually in Qatar’s capital city of Doha. Through panels, workshops, screenings and masterclasses, Qumra brings together a cross-section of producers, festival programmers and journalists in an effort, according to organizers, to “provide mentorship, nurturing, and hands-on development for filmmakers from Qatar and around the world.” This year’s edition, which ran from March 1 to 6, arrived at a particularly fraught moment for the Middle East with Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. After cancelling last November’s Ajyal Film Festival in solidarity with Palestine, the DFI, which […]
by Jordan Cronk on Mar 15, 2024 -
“We Make the Films We Can Make, Not the Ones We Want to Make”: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Qumra Masterclass
An initiative of the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is an event that connects Qatari and international directors who are receiving different stages of DFI-funded support with industry delegates from across the spectrum of the film world and master filmmakers who meet with emerging talents and engage in public conversations. The 5thedition took place between March 15thand 20th, 2019. Kiyoshi Kurosawa is known best as a horror filmmaker but the prolific director has effortlessly moved between different genres—his latest, To the Ends of the Earth, a drama expected to play Cannes, is about a young woman shooting a travel show in […]
by Adam Cook on Mar 25, 2019 -
Dreams of Cinema with Apichatpong Weerasethakul at Qumra
An initiative of the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is a focused event that connects Qatari and international directors who are receiving different stages of DFI-funded support with industry delegates from across the spectrum of the film world as well as a handful of heavy-hitting “Masters” in a mentor-like capacity who meet with emerging talents and engage in public conversations. Far more than a masterclass, attendees at Qumra were treated to a personal journey through history, life and cinema with Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. It opened in a standard format with Richard Peña moderating, but then Joe went solo and pulled […]
by Adam Cook on Mar 19, 2018 -
“I Went Through Two Marriages But I Still Have the Same Editor”: Gianfranco Rosi’s Qumra Masterclass
An initiative of the Doha Film Institute, Qumra is a focused event that connects Qatari and international directors who are receiving different stages of DFI-funded support with industry delegates from across the spectrum of the film world as well as a handful of heavy-hitting “Masters” in a mentor-like capacity who meet with emerging talents and engage in public conversations. After earning the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for Fire at Sea (2016), an unconventional exploration of the refugee crisis’s impact on the island of Lampedusa, Italian filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi has become one of the most talked about documentarians in the world. Speaking […]
by Adam Cook on Mar 15, 2018 -
Nuri Bilge Ceylan on Collaborative Writing, Discarding a Screenplay and Returning to Russian Literature
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s 2014 effort Winter Sleep won what is arguably cinema’s most coveted prize, Cannes’ Palme d’Or. Since then, he has been remarkably quiet. So it was with some anticipation that the 57-year-old Turkish director delivered a master class at Qumra, an industry event taking place in Doha at which filmmakers funded by the Doha Film Institute present their projects to the great and good of the film industry. During the master class, Ceylan revealed that he had discarded a script that he had spent a year slaving over after his Cannes victory. That was just one of many tidbits that Ceylan […]
by Kaleem Aftab on Mar 24, 2016 -
Rethinking Middle Eastern Film: The Inaugural Qumra Meetup
“This is a first rough cut,” said Qumra Artistic Adviser Elia Suleiman. In his witty, prize-winning comedies about the Palestinian question, the director casts himself as a character unable to use his voice, but he proved adroit in the vocal position of film event organizer. He’s worked on the Qumra concept for two years, but last year the event was abandoned when it was deemed not ready. On the fourth day of this inaugural edition, which ran March 6 – 11, he chatted away contentedly — because if this is the rough version, it’s one that might end up being a Picasso. Qumra is an industry […]
by Kaleem Aftab on Mar 17, 2015
