The Doha Film Institute has unveiled the 57 projects from 46 countries to have received it backing in its 2025 Falls Grant Cycle as it hits a milestone of supporting more than 1,000 projects across its 15 years of existence.
The Qatari film body is coming off a high-profile 2025 which saw a number of its grantees – including The President’s Cake, Aisha Can’t Fly Away, Cotton Queen, Once Upon A Time In Gaza, Sa3oud Wainah?, A Sad and Beautiful World, Renoir and Promised Sky – enjoy buzzy festival and awards season runs.
Its latest grantees include Occupational Hazards, a dark comedy by Jordanian director and screenwriter Bassel Ghandour (Theeb, The Alleys); sibling drama Yammi by Tunisian director Hinde Boujemaa (Noura’s Dream) and Palestinian filmmaker Abdallah Al-Khatib’s Chronicles from the Siege, which debuts at the Berlin Film Festival’s competitive Perspectives section next month.
Further non-fiction grantees include Where Do I Belong? by Sudanese filmmaker Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, who took co-director credits on the 2025 Sundance-Berlin-selected doc Khartoum, and Palestinian director Mohanad Yaqubi’s Revolutionaries Never Die, revolving around the archives of late Lebanese journalist Jocelyne Saab.
Awarded biannually in the spring and fall, the DFI Grants Programme is one of the longest-running film development initiatives in the region.
The latest selection also includes 10 projects by Qatari and Qatar-based filmmakers, including Hamad Salem Al-Hajri’s documentary When The News Breaks You about journalists working in conflict areas in the Middle East and short films A World of Donkeys by Majid Al-Remaihi and The Bombardment by Mahdi Ali Ali.
Grantee projects from outside the Middle East and North Africa include Rafael Manuel’s 2026 Sundance-selected Filipiñana, Chinese filmmaker and artist Chinese artist and filmmaker Qiu Jiongjiong’s Fuxi: Joy In Four Chapters as well as upcoming Venezuelan documentary The Language Of Water.
“DFI Grants Programme was created to rebalance the world cinema landscape, so that stories shaped by lived experience, truth, and artistic courage are not the exception, but the foundation. Supporting more than 1,000 projects to date reflects a long-term commitment to important voices, particularly from regions and communities that continue to face barriers to equitable representation,” said DFI CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi
“The filmmakers selected in the 2025 Fall Grants cycle exemplify the power of independent cinema to question, connect, and reveal deeper truths. We have helped filmmakers claim space, challenge dominant narratives, and ensure that cinema remains a vital force for empathy, dialogue, and shared understanding.
2025 Fall Grants recipients:
MENA – Feature Narrative – Development
• The Man Who’s Gone (Egypt/Qatar) by Naji Ismail, about Younes, who leaves nightmare-ridden Cairo for Upper Egypt, after a call from his dying mother requesting three mysterious gifts.
• The Guardian (Libya/Algeria/Canada/Qatar) by Muhannad Lamin, set in the Libyan desert, where Assouf, an elderly Bedouin, is forced to guide two hunters into the mountains.
MENA – Feature Narrative – Production
• Occupational Hazards (Jordan/UK/KSA/Palestine/Qatar) by Bassel Ghandour, is a dark comedy that chronicles the experiences of a multi-generational Palestinian family.
• Wolfmother (Morocco/France/Belgium/Qatar) by Ismaël El Iraki, is set in Tangier, where smuggler Amira Ouazzani raises her children alone.
• Amnesia (Palestine/Jordan/France/Belgium/Canada/Qatar) by Dima Hamdan is about a man with no memory who appears in Jericho and sets out to uncover his identity.
• The Side Effects of Trusting Life (Lebanon/Germany/Norway/Qatar) by Ahmad Ghossein: after losing her job in Lebanon’s collapse, Lama develops anxiety-induced hearing loss.
• Yammi (Tunisia/Belgium/Qatar) by Hinde Boujemaa, about a sister and brother who find themselves embroiled in a disagreement that shakes their family ties.
• The Missing Planet (Egypt/Germany/Poland/Italy/Qatar) by Marouan Omara is a science fiction in which a paramedic races through a collapsing Cairo, and his own dreams.
• The Wild Goat (Iraq/Germany/Norway/Qatar) by Kardo Mansur, when pollution poisons Majid’s village, he relocates his family to a remote cabin near the border.
• Girl of Wind (Tunisia/Qatar) by Moufida Fedhila, a teenage girl escapes a suffocating life through skateboarding, until the return of her dying father forces her to confront the past.
MENA – Feature Narrative – Post-Production
• Algerican Road (Algeria/France/KSA/Qatar) by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, a road movie, set along the southern Sahara, where two lorry drivers are violently robbed.
• Chronicles from the Siege (Palestine/Algeria/France/Qatar) by Abdallah Al-Khatib, featuring interwoven stories of ordinary people, who are upended when their city comes under siege.
• Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep (Palestine/Belgium/Lebanon/KSA/Qatar) by Rakan Mayasi, is set in a valley veiled by fog and tribal codes, where two sisters walk into the night.
• Pipes (Lebanon/KSA/Qatar) by Karim Kassem, is about a retired water authority worker under pressure from the village to bring back water while he mourns the death of his migrant worker.
MENA – Feature Documentary – Development
• Remind Me to Forget (working title) (KSA/Qatar) by Lama Jamjoom, is set in a communal home for divorced and widowed women, where a Saudi woman searches for her estranged sons.
• Everything She Didn’t Say (Algeria/France/Qatar) by Farah Abada, an essay documentary in which the filmmaker confronts the childhood trauma of her journalist father’s murder.
• My Name is Khalil (Palestine/France/Lebanon/Qatar) by Bilal Alkhatib, named after his martyred brother, Khalil grows up as his family’s living echo through dance and music.
• Where Do I Belong? (Sudan/Qatar) by Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad is between exile and homecoming, a filmmaker journeys back to Sudan’s devastation to reunite with his parents.
• Onions to Forget the Past (Lebanon/France/Qatar) by Emilien Awada, is a journey about the filmmaker’s parents, who divided by religion, class and culture, exchanged secret letters.
MENA –Feature Documentary – Production
• Souad and Lamine (Tunisia/Qatar) by Mohamed Ali Nahdi, in which the filmmaker documents his parents, legendary Tunisian artists Souad and Lamine.
• Sama (Palestine/France/Qatar) by Rabab Khamis, is about Sama, only ten years old, who survives in the ruins of Gaza by collecting waste to provide for her family’s needs.
MENA – Feature Documentary – Post-Production
• My Mother & I (Egypt/Iraq/France/Qatar) by Dilpak Majeed, follows a Yazidi woman in her 70s, finding herself at a crossroads between the comfort of solitude and the uncertain promise.
• What Day Are We In? (Palestine/Spain/Germany/Qatar) by Hussein Zuhour, amid the devastation of war, an actor from Gaza documents his 471-day journey of survival.
• When The News Breaks You (Qatar) by Hamad Salem Al-Hajri, a feature documentary about journalists working across the Middle East covering war zones and conflict areas.
• Revolutionaries Never Die (Palestine/Qatar) by Mohanad Yaqubi, an archive-based dialogue between Jocelyne Saab and Yaqubi, as he restores her 1973–83 militant films.
• Out of School (Morocco/Denmark/Qatar) by Hind Bensari, is set in a rocky mountain village cut off from secondary education, where Mohammed and Fatima face the abrupt end of school.
• From Ground Zero + (Palestine/Jordan/France/Qatar) by Reema Mahmoud, Alaa Damo, I’timad Wishah, and Mostafa Al-Nabeeh, a project enabling a new generation of Gazan filmmakers.
MENA – Experimental/Essay – Post-Production
• B.A.H.R Alphabet (Lebanon/Qatar) by Sabine El Chamaa, an essay film of musings on the Mediterranean Sea, its colours, smallest inhabitants, and the plastic on its shores.
MENA- TV Series- Development
• Dirty Hands (Lebanon/Qatar) by Georges Hazim and Maya Dagher, a dark comedy, about four desperate housewives who jump at the chance to make some quick cash.
• The Gate of Resurrection (Palestine/Qatar) by Firas Khoury, about a grief-stricken video editor, who secretly sabotages state TV to discover an underground assassin order.
• Arab Love (Tunisia/Egypt/KSA/Qatar) by Nejib Belkadhi, in which a Tunisian steward and an Egyptian flight attendant fall in love online, testing whether love can survive the social media age.
MENA – Shorts – Narrative – Development
• Nouria (Qatar) by Fatima Alnaemi is an animation about a seamstress Nouria, whose world is upended when a mysterious pigeon delivers a single golden thread, sparking a magical journey.
• HADS (Qatar) by Aysha Alabdulla, about a young man who enters a surreal trial to pursue his dream of becoming a chef but must first confront the fear of failure and self-doubt.
• Akhir El-Saff (working title) (Qatar) by Maryam Al-Mohammed, a coming-of-age drama set in a 1990s girls’ school, where misfit Aljoury sets her sights on a strange, delicate circle of girls.
• Qadr (Qatar) by Aisha Al-Khanji, is about a struggling Qatari café owner who clings to his failing business to escape judgment.
MENA – Shorts – Narrative – Production
• A World of Donkeys (Qatar/Uzbekistan) by Majid Al-Remaihi, a short tale about loss of wit – seen through the persona of Juha (or Nasreddin Khoja), a wise fool of the global south – who returns to our time to realise he is without his lifetime companion, the donkey.
• Ice-Cream (Qatar) by M.A Fakhroo, about Khaled, who finds himself stuck with his young sister Reem for the day, who badly wants ice cream.
• To the North (Palestine/France/Qatar) by Amer Nasser follows Firas, who after a temporary ceasefire, returns to northern Gaza to retrieve his sister’s body from under the rubble.
• The Line Between Us (Egypt/France/Qatar) by Hind Metwalli, a young woman who confronts the unspoken rules shaping her world, when a closely guarded secret threatens her future.
• Aleppo Fresh (Jordan/Qatar) by Ghalia Haddad, when Sakher’s camel stops giving milk, he must choose between loyalty to his father and saving the creature that truly understood him.
• There Are No Rabbits in Gaza (Jordan/Norway/Luxembourg/Egypt/Spain/Qatar) by Maram Soboh and Widad Shafakoj, is about Ahmed and Layla, who collect their daily meal in a Gaza camp.
• A Woman Waiting (Morocco/Qatar) by Zahra Berrada, Samia waits as nearly 20,000 prisoners are granted a royal pardon. Among them, perhaps, is a man she once knew.
• The Bombardment (Qatar) by Mahdi Ali Ali, a romance between a Palestinian man and a woman in Doha shatters when the distant war in Gaza erupts violently into their lives.
• Mafar (Qatar) by Khalifa Al-Kuwari, is set decades in the future when the sun becomes a threat. A brother and his blind sibling seek shelter in an abandoned house.
• Dino’s Last Day (Algeria/France/Qatar) by Rayane Mcirdi, after forty years at the factory, Djamal, known as Dino, works his last shift. His wife and children plan a surprise outing.
MENA – Shorts – Narrative – Post-Production
• Abu Fanoos (Qatar) by Amira Abujbara and Horia El Hadad is a fantasy set during a desert trip in Qatar, when an ageing grandfather seeks to protect his grandson from an eerie presence.
MENA – Shorts – Documentary –Production
• Near – Far: On The Sea Road (working title) (Palestine/Qatar) by Fitnat Waked, a fragile friendship forms between two young Palestinian women – one in Yafa, one in Gaza.
Non-MENA – Feature Narrative – Post-Production
• The Devil’s Wells (Chile/Argentina/Brazil/France/Qatar) by Jairo Boisier Olave, is set in a drought-stricken village, where 15-year-old Judith uses her gift for finding underground water.
• My Semba (Angola/Qatar) by Hugo Salvaterra, is an ode to poetry, cinema, and music that explores survival, identity, and resilience in an African metropolis.
• House of the Wind (Cameroon/France/Belgium/Benin/KSA/Qatar) by Auguste Kouemo Yanghu, in which 75-year-old Josette forms a bond that collapses her certainties about family.
• Fuxi: Joy in Four Chapters (Hong Kong/Taiwan/Japan/France/Qatar) by Qiu Jiongjiong is set in a circus tent, a ragtag crew shoots four bizarre Sichuan tales spanning four millennia.
• Filipiñana (Singapore/UK/Philippines/France/Netherlands/Qatar) by Rafael Manuel, is about tee-girl Isabel, who is strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, president of the country club where she works.
Non-MENA – Feature Documentary – Post- Production
• 32 Meters (Iran/Qatar) by Morteza Atabaki, is set in a patriarchal village where Halime, defying tradition since childhood, joins her friend Gönül to unite women and spark a movement.
• Anatomy of a Genocide (Norway/Sweden/Germany/Croatia/Qatar) by Torstein Grude, is an observational documentary following Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine.
• The Language of Water (Venezuela/Dominican Republic/Peru/Qatar) by Jeissy Trompiz, in which Jofris, the last speaker of Venezuela’s Añunnükü language, flees to Maracaibo.
• The Kartli Kingdom (Georgia/France/Qatar) by Tamar Kalandadze and Julien Pebrel, is set in a crumbling sanatorium in Tbilisi, where refugee families fight to hold onto their home.
• American Doctor (USA/Palestine/Malaysia/Denmark/Qatar) by Poh Si Teng, is about three American doctors – Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian – who enter Gaza to save lives.