Emirates welcomes world’s up and coming filmmakers to Dubai

The world's top 10 up and coming filmmakers touched down in Dubai this week as part of Your Film Festival — a global search for the world's best storytellers. YouTube and Emirates, in partnership with La Biennale di Venezia (the Venice Film Festival) and Scott Free Productions, are the driving force behind this event, which has become the world's largest online film festival.
The final 10 films, selected from over 15,000 worldwide entries, include local Middle Eastern representatives from Lebanon and Egypt. Flying with Emirates from across the airline's international network, on their way to the Venice Film Festival, the finalists yesterday held a private screening of their films.
"Bringing these finalist's to Dubai as part of the Your Film Festival competition is an excellent way to highlight the city's unique assets to some of the world's up and coming filmmakers. As a leading global airline Emirates is always looking for opportunities that allow us to connect people through innovative ideas. Bringing together a truly global mix of finalists has allowed us to be a part of this exciting cultural movement," said Christopher Galanto, Emirates' SVP advertising.
"We are proud that two of the top ten global finalists hail from MENA — this region is rich with content creators," said Ari Kesisoglu, MD, Google in MENA.
The 10 finalists were voted on by the worldwide YouTube community after Scott Free narrowed down more than 15,000 submissions across the globe to 50 semi-finalists. They will travel from Dubai through to the Venice Film Festival to screen their submission film and compete for the $500,000 grand prize. The grand prizewinner will be chosen from a distinguished jury that includes directors Sir Ridley Scott and acclaimed actor Michael Fassbender. The $500,000 provided to the winner will be used to create original online content with Scott Free Productions and Fassbender acting as executive producers.