مرحبًا بكم في Video Consortium الدوحة

Welcome to Video Consortium Doha!

Join us on June 1st from 2pm to 4.30pm at the Novo Cinemas Galleria in Msheireb Downtown to celebrate our launch, meet with fellow non-fiction filmmakers and people from the journalism and documentary film industry!

In collaboration with Shorts by Shorties, we'll start the afternoon with three short documentaries by three local filmmakers, followed by a Q&A session and a casual gathering.

We’ll be screening:

‘No Words’ (5 minutes) by Mariam Al-Dhubhani

'No Words' is a lyrical film that laments the poet's loss of words as to what is happening to his beloved city Taiz and the situation in Yemen. It utilizes 360-degree footage to place the audience at the camera's point of view as an observer to what is occurring in the city. The melancholic images beautifully resonate with the mournful words to create a poetic feel surrounding the ongoing conflict.

Mariam Al-Dhubhani is an award-winning Yemeni-Russian journalist, filmmaker, curator, and educator. She first pursued her passion in media during the Arab uprisings. A two-time TEDx speaker and one of the first directors to utilize virtual reality in Yemen. Through her work, she highlights the dangers of stereotyping the region and attempts to present a counter-narrative to show equality in humanity. Al-Dhubhani has provided mentorship and training to support young filmmakers in conflict areas, including Yemen, Libya, and Iraq. Currently, she is working on her feature debut, Let's Play Soldiers, highlighted at prestigious film festivals and markets such as Cannes, IDFA, and HotDocs.

‘Virtual Voice’ (6 minutes) by Suzannah Mirghani

Suzi doll is an ego-warrior. My online avatar, marching to the algorithms of social media. She is lit by temporary outrage. A trending indignation. A passion that is fashion. A politics of the popular. Her activism is abstract. Her help is hypothetical. We know many girls like Suzi, and many times we are her: vacuous virtual voices, echoing injustices. This film was made under the mentorship of filmmaker Rithy Panh, and was shot using zoom recordings and mobile phone footage.

Suzannah Mirghani is a Sudanese-Russian writer, researcher, and media studies/museum studies graduate. Her short film AL-SIT (2020), screening on Netflix Middle East, won the Canal+ Award at the 2021 Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival as well as 6 Academy Award qualifying prizes. Her latest shorts are the social media satire VIRTUAL VOICE (2021), which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival; and a 2022 film about the Sudanese artist Kamala Ishag, commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries. Suzannah's poem “Some Behavioral Characteristics of the Sudanese Honey Bee (Apis mellifera sudanensis)” was published in the Black SWANA issue of Mizna 23, no. 2 (2023). She is working on her first feature COTTON QUEEN, which won the ArteKino Award at L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

‘The Bleaching Syndrome’ (19 minutes) by Eiman Mirghani

After a failed attempt to make a documentary about a Sudanese woman who bleaches her skin, filmmaker Eiman Mirghani turns the camera around to discover her own relationship with her skin color and how it has affected her life as a young, Afro-Arab woman living in the Middle East.

Eiman Mirghani is a Sudanese filmmaker based in Qatar. Graduating with a BA in Film and Media Studies at the University of Nottingham, Eiman has worked on numerous short films, music videos and documentaries in the MENA region as director and producer. Her second short film ‘The Bleaching Syndrome’, now available online, is a personal documentary made under the mentorship of Rithy Panh in 2018. In 2021, Eiman was one of the producers of the short Sudanese film “Al-Sit”, which has received accolades in numerous international film festivals, was qualified for the Academy Awards and is currently streaming on Netflix. Eiman is currently in post-production for her 2nd documentary project titled "Villa 187".

This will be the first of many gatherings to come! With VC Doha, we aim to provide resources and support to the country's scene of visual journalists and non-fiction filmmakers. Throughout the year, we will curate thoughtful industry panels, networking events, workshops, and masterclasses.

Doors open at 1:45pm

Screening and Q&A: 2pm - 3:30pm

Networking: 3:30pm - 4:30pm

RSVP fast, places are limited!*

We are looking forward to meeting you!


*If you can’t attend the event anymore, please email us at doha@videoconsortium.org at least 24 hours in advance.