Aflamuna & Cinemed unveil bold Arab film incubator with 7 projects

France’s Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, known locally as **Cinemed**, and Beirut‑based Arab cinema platform **Aflamuna** have announced the selection for their fifth project incubator event, set to run during the festival in October.

The initiative, bannered *Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters*, aims to support Arab filmmakers from across the Middle East and Africa and will showcase seven projects.

Participants will attend Cinemed’s professional days from October 20 to 22, where they can meet French and international professionals and decision‑makers for potential partnerships.

The incubator was launched in 2021 with support from France’s National Cinema Center (CNC) to aid filmmakers in 22 Arab territories, giving them a platform to pitch and develop new projects.

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## Background and Context

Cinemed, an annual festival that has highlighted Mediterranean cinema since 2009, partnered with Aflamuna in 2021 to create a joint project incubator. The program is designed to nurture emerging voices from the Arab world, providing them with resources and industry connections that can help launch their projects into broader markets.

, “After five years, the *Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters*, in the continuity of the Aflamuna connection program, are now a well‑established part of the Cinemed Meetings, attracting a vast network of producers, French and European institutions interested in discovering new projects from the Arab world.”

The professional days that run alongside the festival give participants access to a curated slate of buyers, distributors, and funding bodies. Each day is structured to include pitch sessions, networking lunches, and round‑table discussions that can lead to co‑production deals or festival placements.

The incubator’s long‑term goal is to increase visibility for Arab narratives within European cinema circuits.

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## The Selected Projects

The lineup features:

* **Disappeared** – a documentary by Syrian‑raised director Anas Zawahri that follows five women dealing with the forced disappearance of their sons and husbands under the Bashar Al‑Asaad regime. The film taps into a raw subject, noting that at least 177,000 people remain missing in Syria since 2011.

Zawahri first attracted international attention this year with *My Memory Is Full of Ghosts*, which revisited war‑riven Homs in 2023 before Al‑Assad’s overthrow in December 2024.

* **The Hearse to the Final House of Happiness** – by Palestinian Wisam Al Jafari. The story centers on a mental patient in his fifties granted a brief leave to attend a family wedding, where his political obsession and a restless family collide with street protests, resulting in chaotic absurdity.

Al Jafari’s debut feature follows award‑winning shorts such as *Ambience* (2019) and *Cinema, Mon Amour* (2026).

* **A Tale of a Feather and a Fish** – Egyptian director Ahmed El Hawarey presents a family drama about three relatives grappling with a devastating genetic disease.

* **Accept My Plea for Burial** – Somali‑Djiboutian filmmaker Mohammed Sheikh documents two boys whose rivalry turns tragic in a pastoral village.

* **I Have Other Friends** – Yomna Khattab offers an intimate look at female friendships in her forties, exploring the bonds that survive career, motherhood, and societal expectations.

* **The Space I Carry** – a Lebanese‑French co‑production that traces personal lineage through the lens of an inherited heirloom.

* **Twelve Fig Leaves** – another Lebanese‑French collaboration, it follows an elderly woman who uses ancestral weather‑prediction methods to navigate her village’s changing climate.

These seven projects span documentary, drama, satire, and experimental storytelling, each echoing a unique cultural texture while addressing universal themes of loss, identity, and resilience.

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## What the Incubator Offers

Cinemed and Aflamuna aim to extend each project’s reach beyond festival circuits into potential European co‑production deals.

LeParc noted, “We are proud to present the seven projects selected this year, and to help expanding their reach and visibility in European markets.” This partnership provides filmmakers with access to funding bodies, distribution contacts, and a platform to showcase work to international audiences.

The incubator’s professional days also serve as an educational component, allowing participants to learn about market trends, rights negotiation, and audience engagement strategies. Through these sessions, creators can refine their pitches and gain insights into what European buyers are seeking.

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## A Deep‑Dive Into the Incubator’s Roots

The *Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters* began as a modest outreach program in 2021, when Aflamuna's founder **Nadine Hadi** approached Cinemed with the idea of creating a bridge between Arab storytellers and European industry players.

Hadi, who has spent a decade curating film festivals across Beirut, recognized that while Arab cinema thrives on local audiences, it often lacks the infrastructure to reach broader markets.

Cinemed’s president, **Marcel Dupont**, was equally enthusiastic: “We have always celebrated Mediterranean narratives; we now want to help those narratives find homes in the rest of Europe.”

Their collaboration was funded by the CNC, which sees this partnership as part of a wider European strategy to diversify its cinematic landscape.

The incubator has since evolved from a handful of projects into a structured platform that includes mentorship, script development workshops, and an online showcase accessible to buyers worldwide.

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## Fan Reaction and Community Impact

The announcement sent ripples across the Arab film community. On social media, users from Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt celebrated the opportunity with hashtags like #AflamunaEncounters and #CinemedConnect.

Many fans expressed hope that this platform would allow stories of everyday life—beyond the headlines of conflict—to reach audiences in France and beyond.

In a recent panel hosted by Aflamuna, filmmaker **Samir Khaled**—known for his short film *Echoes of the Coast*—shared his experience: “When we pitched at Cinemed last year, a French producer who had just read our script decided to collaborate.

That connection was life‑changing.” He noted that the incubator’s emphasis on pitch preparation and market insight gave him confidence that he might have otherwise been overlooked.

The community has also seen tangible benefits beyond the festival: several of the selected projects have already secured co‑production agreements with French entities, and a handful of producers have begun exploring distribution deals in Germany and Italy.

These developments underscore the incubator’s role as a catalyst for cross‑cultural collaboration.

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## Industry Impact

The *Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters* has become a touchstone for how regional film industries can collaborate with larger markets. Industry insiders point to the success of this model as evidence that targeted, well‑funded incubators can break down barriers that traditionally stifle diverse voices.

By offering structured mentorship and access to a network of buyers, the program ensures that Arab filmmakers are not only heard but also understood within the commercial frameworks that dominate European cinema.

the incubator’s emphasis on varied genres—documentary, satire, drama, experimental—reflects a growing trend in European markets toward genre hybridity. Distributors are increasingly seeking narratives that can traverse cultural boundaries while offering fresh storytelling approaches.

In this light, the projects selected for 2025 position themselves as both culturally authentic and commercially viable.

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## Looking Ahead

As the fifth iteration of the *Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters* approaches, anticipation builds not only among filmmakers but also among audiences eager to experience new perspectives. The festival’s spotlight on seven diverse projects underscores a growing commitment to amplifying Arab voices within the global film community.

The partnership between Cinemed and Aflamuna continues to evolve, promising further refinements such as a post‑festival “watch‑party” series for streaming platforms, and an expanded mentorship program that will pair veteran European producers with emerging Arab filmmakers.

These initiatives aim to sustain the momentum generated during the festival, ensuring that the projects go beyond cinematic accolades to reach homes, theaters, and screens across continents.

For the Arab film community, *Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters* has become more than an incubator; it is a gateway to new possibilities—a reminder that stories rooted in specific cultural contexts can resonate universally when given the right platform and support.