Qatar’s Doha Film Institute has announced the recipients of its 2026 Spring Grants — as usual we focus on fiction feature film projects in three groupings – MENA – Feature Narrative – Development, MENA – Feature Narrative – Production and Non-MENA – Feature Narrative – Post-Production which awards several Cannes Film Festival offerings. Of the projects that have caught our attention we find that Jessy Moussallem‘s short to feature project Faux Bijoux is picking up steam, while Àlex Lora Cercós with The Rift and Seemab Gul with Haven of Hope are likely being readied for autumn prestige film fest circuit. Here are the selections:
MENA – Feature Narrative – Development
Bayt Rabab (Lebanon/Estonia/Qatar) by Pedro Hasrouny: Marie flees with her children to reunite with her husband in exile. Struggling with displacement, she chooses to return home to southern Lebanon, risking everything to reclaim her life.
About Love & September Laws (Sudan/France/Germany/Sweden/KSA/Qatar) by Mohamed Kordofani, set in 1983 Sudan, as Sharia law takes hold, a doctor, a translator and an African American reporter are entangled in love and resistance amid political upheaval.
When Blood Calls (Egypt, Cuba, Brazil, Qatar) by Fady Gamal Soliman: two sons of the same man compete for their father’s approval on a crocodile-hunting expedition until his death forces them to confront the image they had of him.
MENA – Feature Narrative – Production
Accept My Plea for Burial (Somalia/Djibouti/Qatar) by Mohammed Sheikh: after 12-year-old Warmooge dies while playing with his friend in rural Somalia, his family refuses burial. With no clear evidence and an unreliable witness, a community governed by customary law must preserve peace without sacrificing another child.
The Tanjawi (Morocco/France/Qatar) by Zahoua Raji, Ayoub Layoussifi: Casablanca, Morocco. Hassan, a 61-year-old former heroin addict seeking redemption, is ready to do whatever it takes to leave his past behind, even if it means stealing the dowry for his only son’s wedding.
Blue Card (Sudan/Egypt/KSA/Germany/Qatar) by Mohammed Alomda: after war breaks out in Sudan, Abdullah flees alone to Egypt, planning to smuggle his family later. To earn money, he takes a demeaning job at a nursing home, where unexpected relationships reshape his future.
Faux Bijoux (Lebanon/France/Belgium/Qatar) by Jessy Moussallem: caught in debts and schemes, a family is dragged into a vicious cycle that tests their unity.
Non-MENA – Feature Narrative – Post-Production
Haven of Hope (Pakistan/France/Germany/Netherlands/KSA/Qatar) by Seemab Gul: Three inmates from a Pakistani shelter home for women dare to venture out for a day. It transpires that their families would rather brand them lunatics than give them their rights.
Strawberries (Morocco/France/Spain/Belgium/Qatar) by Laïla Marrakchi: Two young women leave their native Morocco to work as seasonal laborers picking strawberries in Southern Spain. Hoping to return home and provide a better life for their families, their dreams clash with a harsh reality.
9 Temples to Heaven (Thailand/Singapore/France/Norway/China/Hong Kong/Indonesia/Qatar) by Sompot Chidgasornpongse: a family takes their grandmother to nine temples in one day, hoping to prolong her life. Throughout the day, their relationships are tested
The Rift [L’Escletxa] (Spain/Belgium/Qatar) by Àlex Lora Cercós: In a small town, Pol Khaled, a teenager from a broken family with an absent Moroccan father and a Catalan mother, confronts social prejudice and his own anger as he seeks belonging through religion in a place that refuses to see him as its own.
Ben’Imana (Rwanda/Gabon/France/Norway/Qatar) by Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo: in post-genocide Rwanda, a survivor devoted to reconciliation must confront her buried trauma and contradictions when her daughter’s unexpected pregnancy reopens the darkest parts of her past.
