Pirates of Sale, our film directed by Rosa Rogers and produced by Merieme Addou, has been awarded development funding from SANAD.

SANAD is the Abu Dhabi Film Festival's fund for film-makers from the Arab World, and the project is set in Morocco, where we have also been working on our project Casablanca Calling.

“Through SANAD, we have the opportunity to support an exciting range of talents and there are few things that make us happier than seeing a project go on to international success, as has already been the case several times since the fund’s launch,” said Peter Scarlet, ADFF’s Executive Director. “We’ve seen an interesting continuation and development of the trend that we noticed in the first rounds of SANAD: Experimentation, daring artistic choices and bold subjects stand out among this crop of projects. We’re particularly thrilled that a number of films that reflect the vitality of Arab cinema right now will be included in this year’s Festival lineup, which we will announce next month.”

“We launched SANAD in response to the lack of funding opportunities from within the Arab world for films from the region. Europe, Asia and the Americas have many film funding sources and we wanted to help create a regional alternative. SANAD is now an important source of support for Arab filmmakers, providing a strong platform to present, promote and share their work with the international film community,” said Eissa Saif Rashed Al Mazrouei, Director of Special Projects for ADACH.

More information about SANAD can be found here.