The recent partnership between Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), leading festival in the Arab world, Asia and Africa, and Beirut DC, a Lebanon based organization focused on encouraging independent filmmaking, hopes to foster local documentary filmmaking skills and production.  According to "The Hollywood Reporter: The Daily Cannes," DIFF will be contributing $10,000 towards Beirut DC's Documentary Course, the goal of which is to motivate young people who wish to pursue professional filmmaking and to enhance their skills.  A chosen film from the course will be shown at the Dubai Film Connection, a coproduction film market hosted at DIFF, to potentially find financial backing and technical support in order to produce a full documentary. 

These two organizations should work well together as they promote similar causes.  DIFF shows strong community outreach, as one of is founding objections was to promote regional filmmaking talent and help them to live their dreams.  Beirut DC focuses on hosting training workshops to promote documentary filming in the Arab world.  

The next DIFF will occur on December 12-19.

-Melissa Evanko