Festival Succe for the Dream of Shahrazad

Festival Success for The Dream of Shahrazad

The past three weeks have seen Cape Town filmmaker Francois Versters documentary film The Dream of Shahrazad enjoying hugely successful launches in both Egypt and the United Kingdom.

The film, which looks at recent political events in Egypt and Turkey through the lens of the famous story collection The 1001 Nights, recently had its Arab-world premiere at the 4th Luxor African Film Festival, where it scooped the Artwatch Africa/Al-Husseini About Deif Prize for the best film in the Freedom Competition Section (funded by the Arterial Network), together with the Golden Mask of Tutankahmen Award. Says Verster, We are all hugely pleased with the film being acknowledged in this way with its very first screening in Egypt. The Arterial Network website describes the jury awarding a compelling film of great artistic and technical merit. Highly innovative and original in concept, content and impact, it importantly precipitates intellectual, emotional and transformative engagement with the issues of freedom of expression, human rights and social justice.

A few days later, the film had its UK premiere as one of seventeen films selected for the prestigious London Human Rights Watch Film Festival, where it played to much critical acclaim and sold-out screenings. The hugely successful Cairo premiere this past week formed part of Special Events at this years Downtown Creative Arts FESTIVAL (D-CAF).

The Dream of Shahrazad premiered in the Masters Section at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in November 2014, and is currently scheduled for further festival screenings in Poland, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, South Africa, Egypt, Australia and elsewhere.

The film received funding from the South African National Film & Video Foundation, the IDFA/Bertha Fund, the Sundance Documentary Fund, Spier Films, the CBA Worldview Fund, Spier Films, the Netherlands Film Fund, the European Union via Hakaya, and Afri Docs. It was produced by Verster in collaboration with Wael Omar of Middle West Films, Shameela Seedat of Undercurrent Film and Television and Neil Brandt of Fireworx Media, and co-produced by Fleur Knopperts and Denis Vaslin of Volya Films (Netherlands), Lucas Rosant of Melia Films (France) and Serene Huleileh and Reem Abu Kishek of the Hakaya Regional Network (Jordan).

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