A total of 205 films from 33 countries will vie for top awards at the ninth Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival from April 18 to 21 at Sheraton Doha Hotel.

Entries include 23 long, 82 medium and 53 short films, 36 new horizon films and 11 promising films which will be viewed and evaluated by a 15-member panel of judges from Arab and non-Arab countries.

They include Ana Maria Leyaristi (Spain), Chao Gan (China), Dr Amal El Gamal (Egypt), Dr Kahlid Hroub (the UK), Dr Marzook Bashir Ben Marzook (Qatar), Giulia Amati (France), Gulbara Tolomushova (Kyrgyzstan), Dr Habib Nasry (Morocco), Hady Zaccak (Lebanon), Sergio Trefaut (Portugal) and Dr Yusuf Kaplan (Turkey) and others.

Organised under the auspices of Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, Chairman of Aljazeera Board, this year’s festival under the theme ‘Windows’ will open with the Chinese film Appointment.

The festival chooses winners in long, medium and short categories, with cash prizes of QR50,000, QR40,000 and QR30,000.

Jury Award winners will receive QR25,000 for long, QR20,000 for medium and QR15,000 for short films.

The winner of the New Horizon Award will receive QR15,000, while the runner-up will receive QR10,000.

“The Aljazeera Documentary Channel, the Public Liberties and Human Rights Section and the Aljazeera Children’s Channel will offer prizes to all categories as follows: QR40,000 for the winning film in the long category, QR30,000 in the medium category and QR20,000 in the short category,” said Festival Director Abbas Aranaout.

The festival has received 1,392 entry forms from 90 countries of which 33 will be participating.

The participating countries include Qatar, Jordan, Austria, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Cuba, Egypt, France, Holland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Bolivia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, Yemen and Latvia.

Mozambique and Cyprus are participating for the first time.

China has a distinguished presence with 33 films in all categories of the competition.

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