Dubai, January 28, 2015: Image Nation is set to hand out up to 250,000 AED in funding to budding filmmakers who submitted to last month’s Dubai International Film Festival. Collaborating with the film festival’s Enjazz post-production support program, five filmmakers will be given grants of up to 50,000 AED each for their projects.

Applicants wanting to benefit from the grant submitted film ideas and scripts at the recent DIFF.  Submissions will be judged by a panel of experts, including Image Nation’s development executive Talal Al Asmani.

Mohammed Al Mubarak, Chairman of Image Nation said of the partnership: “Image Nation Abu Dhabi is proud to once again partner with the Enjaaz program to support local and regional filmmakers.

“The partnership complements the numerous programs we have to help develop a sustainable film community in the region. We’re looking forward to seeing the array of talent from this year’s festival and hopefully uncover some filmmaking stars of the future.”

This is the third time Image Nation have joined forces with Enjazz to support the region’s filmmakers. In addition to receiving funding, the winners will be given Image Nation’s expertise to help develop their skills and style of filming.

DIFF’s Artistic Director, Masoud Amralla Al Ali said: “This programme has been created through DIFF’s partnership with Image Nation to boost both growth and talent to develop a vibrant filmmaking community in the region. Integral to DIFF’s vision is to discover, nurture and progress talent, focusing on original and distinctive filmmaking. This fund is crucial to supporting film development which will contribute to enriching film culture which will benefit audiences both here and abroad and will further define the regions filmmakers.” The winners of the grants will be announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

In addition to the film funding partnership, Image Nation had two of their productions screen at this year’s DIFF – the highly anticipated ‘From A to B’ directed by Ali Mostafa and international co-production ‘A Most Violent Year’ which stars Jessica Chastain.