Khalid’s sincere efforts to honour his deceased friends and to keep their names always alive, are seeing the light today with the announcement of the OMQ Film Festival winners’ results. Khalid al Abri, the owner of OMQ Company said “Those who have made an impact and left a fingerprint in the community, should be celebrated in their lives and after their death. In the field of photography, Mohammed al Nahdi, Ahmed al Abadi and Oman al Adawi will remain always in the hearts and minds of their beloved ones and will always save their memory to the next generations”.
Out of a total of 42 participating films, the best eight were awarded last night in a ceremony held under the patronage of Sayyid Ibrahim al Busaidy, Minister of State and Governor of Musandam. RO 15,000 were devoted to the Award in its first edition to the winning films which are: Best Integrated Film: Distress, Best idea: Fence Without Shadow, Incentive prize: Hamed’s car, Best Director: A Film from Earth for Humans, Best Photographer: Folding, Best Actor: Monsters, Best Cinema Effects: The Last Survivor, Best Sound Editing: Innocence.
It should be noted that the arbitrators in the competition are one of the elite directors and individuals of artistic companies in the Sultanate of Oman, namely director Mustafa al Lawati from Akkasa Company, director Issa al Subhi at Sultanate of Oman TV, director Haitham al Tobi from Point Company, director Anwar al Asami from Reality CG, and Director Dawood al Kiyumi from KI-Bros Production.
The OMQ Film Award is an artistic initiative in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth that features the harvest of those deceased young photographers in photography, the values they believed in and the works they left that inspired others, so the award is a memorial to them in order to encourage the advancement of film-making among creative and innovative Omani youth. It provides messages and ideas that rise to reach outside the country.
“This award is an opportunity to lay down the basis of the local cinema that can make an influence and create an atmosphere of competition supported with unique artistic talents”, says Khalid. the Award prepares local films to compete in a regional and international levels, he adds.
“We believe in the importance of cinema in creating culture, imparting ideas and opinions neutrally. It is also an efficient method to develop skills of youth, and create positive societal features. the award encourages Omani youth to feature their own world and to develop this field in creative and artistic ways that contribute to strengthening cinematic production locally”.
The prizes are divided as follows: RO 5,000 for the best integrated film, RO 3,000 for the best idea and RO 2,000 for the incentive award. As for individuals, RO 1,000 will go for each best director, best photographer, best actor/actress, best cinema effects editor and best sound engineer.
The themes of the film were narrowed to documentary, promotional and cinematic fields for youth aged between 18 to 35.
Mai Al Abria
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