KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti movie ALGA’AILA, for young Kuwaiti director Abdullah Al-Henayyan, was recently nominated to take part in the Around International Film Festival (ARFF) in Amsterdam, which is scheduled for September 2020. This is the film’s second nomination for an international festival after being nominated for the European Short Film Festival due to be held in May 2021.

Expressing his joy with the nominations, Henayyan stressed that such achievement could not have been made without LOYAC’s support for the youth and LAPA’s cinema workshops. Henayyan added that his relation with the cinema started through LAPA workshops after which he started writing scripts and directing them. “We produced four films through the workshop and then my film won the award of the FAD festival organized by LAPA last December,” he underlined, adding that he is currently working on a new short film written by a colleague who had also been trained in LOYAC. “I also plan to open my own production company,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, LAPA’s movie camp supervisor and media figure Nadia Ahmed expressed her joy with the movie, noting that ALGA’AILA is a valuable addition to the Kuwaiti film industry. “We have so far organized four editions of FAD festival and will keep supporting young film makers from Kuwait and the Arab world to develop their skills in writing, production, photography, direction and acting and encourage them to produce more short films, providing them with all the support they need,” Ahmed added, noting that the success of ALGA’AILA is a motivation to develop the film camp activities and provide intensive training programs similar to those taught in the most prestigious cinema colleges around the world.

Notably, LOYAC Lebanon had recently organized the latest  edition of the FAD festival where the workshops mainly focused on writing for cinema through a workshop given by Stephanie Khouri. Other workshops were made in direction and editing presented by Qnasoon and Dima Al-Ansari, Tareq Al-Askar and others.