‘Paper Tiger’ & Furies’ Set For Doha Film Festival Gala Screenings

James Gray’s Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller, will make its MENA premiere at the second Doha Film Festival in November.

It is among seven features unveiled by the Qatari festival on Monday for its Gala and Special Screenings lineup.

Further titles getting the red carpet treatment include Rami Kodeih’s Beirut-set thriller Furies, about two sisters who plot a bank heist to pay for medical treatment. It world premiered in the Venice Spotlight section in September.

Both titles were produced by Brazilian producer Rodrigo Teixeira under his RT Features banner, and were supported by the Film Committee at Media City Qatar as part of its concerted push into international film business, unveiled on the eve of the inaugural Doha Film Festival last year.

Teixeira was also joined on Furies by executive producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov under their Smokehouse Pictures banner.

The Gala lineup also features Australian director Jeffrey Walker’s family adventure Fing!; Maiken Baird’s Toronto-selected Edward Said: Between Worlds and Bruno Dumont’s Red Rocks.

The Special Screenings selection includes Abderrahmane Sissako’s Artou, the first 360° immersive film by the Mauritanian-born Malian Timbuktu director, which was also backed by the Film Committee.

The work, which debuted in Venice’s Immersive competition, follows three sisters and three brothers on their journey from Europe to Mauritania to fulfill the last wish of their father to be laid to rest beside his father in his native village.

Other Special Screenings include Daniele Rugo’s Life Support, following international doctors working alongside local medical staff in Gaza in 2023; Ginevra Elkann drama The Roses of Marrakech and Ali El Arabi’s 52 Blue, about a reclusive young man’s journey from Kerala to Qatar in a bid to meet his idol Lionel Messi during the Qatar World Cup.

“Our Gala and Special Screenings will bring audiences together through films that move, surprise, and spark conversation,” said Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, CEO of Doha Film Institute (DFI) and Director of Doha Film Festival.

“From gripping dramas and timely documentaries to stories filled with humour, adventure and discovery, the selection celebrates the courage to question what we take for granted and find dignity and truth in the complexity of human experience.”

The Doha Film Festival expands on the DFI’s long-running family-focused festival of Ajyal which ran for more than a decade during the same period.

The Gala and Special Screenings titles join the previously announced International Competition as well as a selection of local productions.