The Dubai International Film Festival has announced that it will be partnering with The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Interior for the Festival’s 14th Edition.

This will be the fourth year that Ministry of Interior’s Cinema Award will be presented, with $100,000 gifted to the winner of the competition which will run from the  December 6-13, 2017.

In the previous years’ competition Darin Sallam emerged victorious and was awarded with the coveted Ministry of Interior Award and $100,000 for ‘Best Societal Screenplay’.

The nominated filmmakers that will be vying for the top prize in this year’s Ministry of Interior Cinema Awards include; Nayla Al Khaja, Emirati film director and producer, with her short film ‘Animal’. Joining her is Rawia Abdullah, returning to DIFF for the fifth time with her latest work ‘The Contact Line of Domfront’; and Amal Al-Agroobi, who is also returning to DIFF having premiered her first short Half Emirati in 2012, with ‘Disruptive Servant’. The nominees that will be completing the line-up for the coveted Ministry of Interior Cinema Awards are; Wael Abumansour with ‘Amusement Park’; ‘Kombars’, by award-winning Bahraini filmmaker Mohammed Rashed BuAli; Mohammed Helail’s ‘Eight Other People’; and ‘The Crown of Olives’ by Muzna Almusafer.

The winner will be presented at the Muhr Award Ceremony on the December 13, 2017.

Abdel Muttalib Al Hammadi, Deputy Chairman of the Ministry of Interior’s Cinema Awards Committee, reaffirmed MOI’s commitment to supporting cinema in the region at the 14th edition of DIFF, he said: “The Dubai International Film Festival’s ongoing work to support burgeoning and established cinema and art has continued to play a key role in helping crucial issues reach a wider populace. At the Ministry of Interior, we are committed not only to create opportunities for Emirati, local and regional talent to take their ideas from script to screen, but also to enrich education across our society through the medium of film.”