Lynne Ramsay & Michael Winterbottom Head To Qatar As ‘Qumra Masters’ At Doha Film Institute Incubator Event

Playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton, producer David Parfitt, Dune costume designer Jacqueline West and directors Lynne Ramsay and Michael Winterbottom are to set attend the Qatari Doha Film Institute’s ninth talent incubator event Qumra in March.

The meeting, which returns as an in-person event for the first time in four years from March 10-15 after a Covid-19 pandemic hiatus, focuses on nurturing first and second-time filmmakers.

They attend with their projects that have received funding from the Doha Film Institute (DFI), a major backer of indie cinema in the Middle East and North Africa.

Hampton, Parfitt, West, Ramsay and Winterbottom are participating in the role of the event’s so-called Qumra Masters.

They will give a masterclass and mentor some of the filmmakers in attendance. The full list of attendees and projects will be announced next week.

Oscar-winner Hampton’s participation follows in the wake of The Father, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2021, and Venice 2022 title The Son.

He is joined by The Father producer Parfitt, who won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love in 1999, with other credits including My Week with Marilyn and the DFI-supported Loving Vincent.

West is a four-time Oscar nominee for Dune, The Revenant, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Quills. Upcoming credits include Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Dune: Part II for Denis Villeneuve.

Ramsay’s work includes Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, We Need To Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a traumatized war veteran turned mercenary,

Michael Winterbottom award-winning films include In This World, The Road to Guantanamo and A Mighty Heart. He is currently completing post-production on Promised Land, a thriller set in the lead-up to the 1948 Partition Of Palestine.

Past Qumra Masters have included actress Tilda Swinton, Oscar-winning Roma production designer Eugenio Caballero as well as directors Claire Denis, Bruno Dumont, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Gianfranco Rosi, Asghar Farhadi and Lucrecia Martel.

The Masters are curated by the DFI team headed by CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi and its Artistic Advisor Elia Suleiman.

“We are honoured to welcome five exceptional film luminaries who have defined individuality in cinema as our Qumra 2023 Masters. The mentorship these accomplished film professionals provide will be invaluable to the success of the selected filmmakers and their projects,” said Hassan Alremaihi.

Suleiman added: “The Qumra 2023 Masters are luminaries in world cinema, and bring a unique perspective on filmmaking that will incredibly benefit our filmmakers in their creative journeys.”