DOX BOX 10 Closes Curtains with Unprecedented Success
The third edition of DOX BOX, the independent documentary film festival in Syria closed its curtains on the evening of March 11th, 2010 in Damascus.
With over 65% rise in audience numbers (+7000 first edition, 12000 second edition, +20000 third edition), the festival confirms its position being the region’s leading documentary film festival. The festival ran in three cities, Damascus, Homs and Tartous. 43 films were screened in different sections, Official Selection, Voices from Syria, Best of Fest, Men & Women, Working Class Goes to Heaven, Pennebaker & Hegedus retrospective, Patricio Guzman retrospective.
The attendance of some of the world’s greatest filmmakers and professionals, including Patricio Guzman, D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, Ally Derks, Jane Balfour, Marc Isaacs, Jehane Noujaim, Hicham Bin Ammar, Fairooz Tamimi, among many others, contributed to the great success of the festival’s professional activities. 32 young filmmakers, from 7 Arab World countries, took part in a 6 day scheme of training, DOX BOX Campus for upcoming professionals & Takween for beginners. Tabadol was the festival’s professional networking and debate platform, and it had guests such as Alex Szalat, presenting Arte, Diana Jabbour, the Director General of Syrian Television, Bashar Ibrahim from Al Shurouq TV…among others.
6 new projects were presented to the attending professionals, and they received the most helpful consultancies, some already moved forward to negotiations of co-production. DOX BOX Campus mentors were Tue Steen Muller, Mikael Opstrup and Peter Badel. Master-classes were presented by Pennebaker & Hegedus (Moderated by Ally Derks), Patricio Guzman & Omar Amiralay, providing upcoming filmmakers with such immense experience and knowledge.
The festival, with its newly introduced section “Voices from Syria” presented its first DOX BOX – Soura Award, to the best film from Syria, and the jury members were: Jehane Nojaim (Egyptian-American multi-awarded filmmaker), Isabel Arrate (the coordinator of IDFA’s Jan Vrijman Fund) and Nezha Idrissi (Moroccan-French producer and the director of Fida Doc festival in Agadir). The first DOX BOX – Soura Award went to Lina Al Abed for her short documentary Nour Al Huda. The award comprises of a trophy designed by renowned Syrian sculpture Mustapha Ali and a cash prize of 2200 USD. The festival’s main award, The DOX BOX Audience Award, went to Lebanese Zeina Daccache for her feature-length film ’12 Angry Lebanese’ with a new record in audience voting, where the film’s final score was 9.54/10. The award comprises of the festival’s trophy and a cash prize of 3000 USD.
DOX BOX is an independent, not-for-profit, creative documentary film festival that is held annually in Syria since 2008. DOX BOX is organized by Proaction Film, under the patronage of the National Film Organization, with the collaboration and support of local and international institutions and individuals. All DOX BOX screenings are free-admission. Previous editions guests included Nicolas Philibert, Pirjo Honkassalo, Niels Pagh Anderson… among others.
