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Netflix has announced a partnership with the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) through which five Arab women filmmakers and producers shortlisted will receive a one-time grant through Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity to bring their fiction and non-fiction projects to life.
The Netflix Fund for Creative Equity in the Arab world, valued at USD 250,000, will provide financial support to women filmmakers in the Arab world.
Five women were shortlisted to receive a grant for their individual projects. The five women filmmakers represent different parts of the Arab world including Lebanon, Tunisia, and Morocco. AFAC already has two grants aiming to support filmmakers in cinema and documentary making. Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity grantees were selected from the list of women filmmakers shortlisted for each of these grants for the 2021 cycle.
They five women are: Asmae El Moudir, a director and producer from Morocco whose film, The Mother of All Lies has been shortlisted for the non-fiction category; Diala Kachmar with the project, from the other shore; Jana Wehbe with her film The Day Vladimir Died; and Tania Khoury with Manity -- all exceptional female producers from Lebanon who are spearheading three fiction projects; and finally Sarra Abidi -- a director and producer from Tunisia who is looking forward to bring her story, My Name Is Clara, to life on the screen.
In a press release on the streaming giant's site, Nuha Eltayeb, Director of Content Acquisitions for Turkey, Middle East, and North Africa for Netflix wrote: "We are committed to telling stories about and by women across our slate in the Arab world. The Arab world has a long-standing history of women in entertainment, and we’ve had incredible successes and firsts from the region that we’re all very proud of. But in order to give more people a chance to see their lives reflected on screen, we need more women behind and in front of the camera."
Rima Mismar, AFAC's Executive Director stated: "More and more Arab women filmmakers are creating moving images that have the power to shed light on the realities of the region. This second collaboration with Neftlix, this time to support women in the field of cinema, complements perfectly AFAC's mission to promote diversity of voices and narratives."
On the Netflix site, the following statement appears regarding this latest announcement: "This initiative continues our commitment to amplifying women's voices as we work with both established creators and new voices in the Arab world to tell more layered and multidimensional stories. It builds on our work to date with shows like Al Rawabi School for Girls and Finding Ola all of which hail from women, for women."
Netflix, of course, is the world's leading streaming entertainment service with 222 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries, and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.
