Deadline: July 4, 2023
Applications are invited for the Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC) Cinema Program 2023. The AFAC’s Cinema program supports all kinds of fiction film projects. The Cinema program welcomes submissions of short and medium-length narrative films in production and post-production, as well as feature narratives that are in development, production, or post-production phases.
The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – AFAC was founded in 2007 through the initiative of Arab cultural activists as an independent foundation to support individual artists, writers, researchers, intellectuals, as well as organizations from the Arab region working in the field of arts and culture. Since its launch, AFAC’s programs have steadily expanded to cover cinema, photography, visual and performing arts, creative and critical writings, music, documentary film, in addition to funding research, trainings and cultural events. Based in Beirut, AFAC works with artists and organizations all over the Arab region and the rest of the world.
Grant
- The program provides annual grants up to USD $10,000 for development grants, up to USD $50,000 for production grants for feature-length and USD $20,000 for short and medium-length, and up to USD $25,000 for post-production grants for feature-length, and USD $10,000 for short and medium-length films.
Eligibility
- Open to applications from Arab directors and producers living in the Arab region or the diaspora. A non-Arab producer can apply for a grant provided that the film director is Arab. It is highly recommended that film projects applying to the production and post-production grants have producers attached to them.
- Project applications are accepted irrespective of age, years of experience, country of residence, ethnicity, gender, or religion.
- A film producer is eligible to apply with a maximum of two projects per category per cycle, provided the two projects are not attached to the same director.
AFAC will not consider applications submitted by:
- Members of the AFAC board of trustees, their business partners, or family members.
- AFAC staff members, their business partners, or family members.
- Members of the current year’s reader and juror committees.
- Applicants with a current open grant.
- Recipients of grants in two consecutive years will not be eligible to apply for the next two consecutive years. For example, if you received a grant in 2020 and another one in 2021, you will only be eligible to re-apply in 2024.
- Film producers who have an open grant can apply with another project. If they have two open grants, they are not eligible to apply before the completion of one of the projects.
- A director who already has an open grant from AFAC (regardless of whether the contract is in their name or the producer’s name).
- Each director may only submit one application in the same category (development, production, post-production).
- If a director has an application that is in process, they cannot submit another application in another category until the result of the current application in process is announced.
- If a grantee has received two grants – one for development and one for production for the same film project – they cannot apply for post-production.
Application
Applications are only accepted through the online forms available. Applications submitted via regular mail or email will not be considered. The applicant will receive a confirmation email once the online application has been submitted. Applicants are advised to follow up on the full completion and delivery of the requested material, as AFAC will not contact applicants if any part of their application is incomplete. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
The submission of the below listed supporting material/samples for the project you are applying with is required:
- A detailed budget must be included for all projects.
- If the application is submitted by the producer, make sure to provide samples of the director’s previous works, if any.
- If applying for a post-production grant, applicants must submit a rough cut. For medium-length projects, the rough cut should be 10 minutes. For feature-length projects, the rough cut should be 25 minutes. A trailer can be sent along with the rough cut.
- If you are applying for a production grant, the applicant must submit a script and a treatment of the submitted project.
- If applying with a project that is partly or fully animated, the applicant must submit a mood board.
- Supporting files/samples for submitted projects and previous works exceeding 10 MB should be included as links to files on file-sharing or hosting websites (such as Dropbox, Vimeo, and YouTube…). AFAC Will not accept links with expiration deadlines.
For more information, visit AFAC.
