The 7th International Al Jazeera Documentary Festival, 21-24 April, Doha Sheraton.
The vision and the target of the Festival with the founders words is to make the festival the window that opens up to other culture and for other culture. To begin acquaintance and exchange of experiences and knowledge, which builds a culture of common humanity and a new horizon to proceed together.
As for target of the Festival is: “We reach out to the world brings us, we look for and promote the common, to be a productive forum for film-makers, and together we will create something new. To celebrate and support the creative talent, and build a cultural interest in documentary films and explore its dimensions. At Seven o’clock, on Monday evening of April 18th 2005 was the commencement of the festival, introducing itself to the world, and announcing the opening up of Aljazeera Network more on the Arabic and international media, under the auspices of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of "AlJazeera network," Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani. The work of 14 Arab countries was included in its first year; which carried the name "Al Jazeera Television Production Festival”, and varied between documentaries, social programs and news. The festival gala presented Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards for each of the groups involved, as well as prizes for the contest "New Horizon" which launched by the festival since its first edition as encouragement to students; a contest that has become a title and his trademark every year. The start was a move towards something new, and an attempt by "Aljazeera" to strongly reach a place never been into before, to become a forum of a new creative. The first step was successful, and a lot of requests for participation were applied to the second edition, but this time not only from the Arab countries but from other countries of the world, and the word "International" was added to the title of festival, and many categories were included into the competitions, one Arab and another for the work of non-Arab, and prizes are given for each event separately, as the first festival with diverse business partnership between documentary films and television work. In the third version the festival concentrated more on documentaries, and with the participation of the more countries of the world, it carried the title " Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival," and categorized competitions into three films categories (long, short, medium) as well as "New Horizon competition" and all the Arabic and foreign works will inter into one competition to compete over the AlJazeera Festival Award ", which awards the winner film a winner in all three categories, and a special award given as the " Jury Committee" with the continuation of awards for "New Horizon". Starting with the fourth edition; special award provided by the sponsors to promote work addressing issues of particular importance were added to the award list such as; family and children issues, the Palestinian issue and freedom and human rights issues. Its sixth edition experiences closeness and the approach to the public offering a number of films in public places that enjoy broad public presence, other than the offers within the corridors of the headquarters at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha. The festival continues its message discussing number of issues related to industry, documentaries and international levels, and challenges and ways to improve them, as well as issues of freedoms through various symposiums. The festival hosted its many Arabs and foreigners guests of honor, as the jury was distinguished by diversity, and where it’s administration is keen to manage the festival by not repeating any of its participants again, and not to represent any state by more than one member, as well as the tradition developed by the festival to include the Gold winners to the jury.”
