The Arab Film Festival in Berlin is now receiving applications for film entries in the festival. Founded in 2009, the festival aims at providing a place for Arab films to be shown in Germany. In addition, the festival allows viewers and filmmakers to explore the new surge in filmmaking in the Arab world. "As narratives are bracing new creativity levels, more and more filmmakers expose social and political changes, and explore inner worlds and taboos. ALFILM casts such developments to provide new talents a chance to present their work; some for the first time in Europe or Germany. Moreover, the FOCUS section designates its yearly theme to a further exploration of rising issues and track parallel developments." The festival will take place in March 2014, and the main programme will include "a panorama of contemporary Arab film production including feature and documentary films, as well as short films, experimental films and video art," according to the call for submissions. The films submitted have to be made by an Arab filmmaker or fully produced or co-produced in an Arab country. All types of films are accepted including narrative, documentary or shorts that "handle an issue that relates to the Arab world, and that the submitted films may not be older than 3 years." Applicants have to fill an application form available on the festival's website and upload three stills from the film onto the website along with a picture of the director. They also need to mail in (by regular mail or international courier) "two preview DVDs of the submitted film properly labelled with the necessary information: title of the film, full name of the director, country, and year of production, along with a printout of the confirmation email following the completion of your submission." The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2013. Mailed packages should be clearly labelled "No commercial value, for cultural purposes only" and have a declared value of maximum €5. According to their website, the festival is "a platform where stereotypes are confronted with authentic stories and images. Along with films from well known film-producing countries, ALFILM aims to discover emerging filmmakers and to access new narratives as well as interrelations and challenges. Moreover, ALFILM provides filmmakers, producers, experts, and distributors with forum for artistic exchange, which results in further cooperation and development of new projects." The festival is organised by Cinemaiat – Friends of the Arab Cinematheque in Berlin. More information can be found on the Festival's website.
