The Competition is the main section of the Berlinale film festival, in which the selected features compete for the Golden and Silver Bear awards. This year, the international jury deciding which of the 18 nominees will receive the awards consists of Dutch director and screenwriter Paul Verhoeven who is serving as jury president; Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, American actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, German actress Julia Jentsch, Mexican actor and director Diego Luna, Chinese director and screenwriter Wang Quan'an, and Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha Fourati. Dora Bouchoucha Fourati is an eminent figure in the Arab and international film world. After studying English literature, she went on to work as a teacher and translator of screenplays. Fourati founded her own production company, Nomadis Images, in 1995. She has since produced and co-produced a large number of prominent award-winning films such as Raja Amari's Satin Rouge in 2002, Buried Secrets in 2009, and Foreign Body, which is taking part in this year's Berlinale; Djamila Sahraoui's Barakat! that was screened at the festival last year; Mohamed Ben Attia's full lenghth debut Heidi, which won the Best First Feature Award and Silver Bear for Best Actor last year; as well as all of the director's own films. Throughout her career, Fourati has contributed greatly to the Arab and African film industries. She launched the Carthage Film Festival “Projects' Workshop” initiative in 1992, to help Arabs and Africans develop their scripts. The follow-up project, Takmil, which aims to support post-production, was launched in 2014. She also founded the screenwriting workshop SUD ECRITURE for Arab and African scripts in 1997, an initiative that launched many award-winning films. Fourati was festival director of the Carthage Film Festival in 2008, 2010 and 2014. She also presided over both the Fonds Sud Cinema of the CNC in 2010, and the follow-up institution, Aide aux Cinemas du Monde, in 2014. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at@AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture.
