A first for Arab women
Tunisian-Egyptian actress, Hend Sabry will be joining the prestigious jury panel of the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film, at the 76th Venice Film Festival. The event is set to take place from August 28 to September 7.
The award-winning actress appointment makes her the first female Arab filmmaker to fill this post. Yesterday, the El-Mamarr actress took to Instagram to confirm her selection while sharing how she feels. “I am proud of my selection as a jury member of the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film, at the Venice Film Festival. I was even more honoured to learn that veteran directors Emir Kusturica. I am happy that this participation coincides with the screening of my movie The Blue Elephant Pt 2, which achieved huge success in all the Arab countries where it is being screened.”
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“I wish to be a good Arab ambassador in the oldest festival in the world and one of the three most important festivals in the world,” stated Sabry on her official Instagram account. The actress is one of the region’s biggest stars, starring in multiple hit movies and TV series. Therefore, this is not the first time that she is seated on an international festival’s jury panel. In 2015, she was a jury member at the Dubai International Film Festival, and then became the first Arab actress to join the Rotterdam Film Festival jury panel in 2016.
There will be lots of Arab representation at the 76th Venice International Film Festival. Other than Sabry’s jury selection, Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour will also be present at the event, as her film The Perfect Candidate was one of the many movies joining the festival’s line-up. Moreover, Saudi writer and director, Shahad Ameen, is set to make her debut at the Film Festival next month. Her fantasy film Scales (Sayidat Al Bahr in Arabic) will premiere at Venice and was created by Image Nation Abu Dhabi and filmed in the UAE, with many of the scenes captured in Oman.
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The annual Venice Film Festival is one of the three biggest cinematic events on the calendar, and is seen as an indicator on which features will win big during the awards season. Past films such as La La Land, Roma and The Shape of Water have all debuted at the event highlighting the level of competition to enter such a prestigious festival.
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