The MENA Film Festival is celebrating its milestone fifth edition this November in Vancouver, Canada and we want you to be a part! For the past four years, MENA has been Vancouver's first and only festival dedicated to films from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region.

We are excited for the chance to continue showcasing stories and experiences from our local community, across Canada and the global diaspora.

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Categories:

- Feature films (no more than 140 minutes)
- Short films (30 minutes or less)
- Documentary (short or feature length)
- Experimental

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Submission Guidelines:

Our programming strives to represent all communities within the MENA/SWANA region, including those marginalized by ethnicity, language, or religion: be they aboriginal, nomad, stateless linguistic groupings and other identities that don't fall neatly into any orientalist image of MENA/SWANA.

We also seek immigrant narratives from ethnic and linguistic enclaves across the diaspora: pan-Arabic, West Asian, religiously heterodox, as well as personal identities that interface with a postmodern politics: queer, post-colonial, anti-racist and Indigenous selfhood.

If you have any questions or want to know if your film qualifies, please contact sarah.trad@menafilmfestival.com

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Rules and Terms:

Works must have a significant (more than half) representation of MENA/SWANA-identifying people in key creative roles OR the subject matter must largely treat the region/identity in some significant way (see above for what we mean by MENA/SWANA).

If your film is selected for the 2023 MENA Film Festival, we require:

- A DCP version

- A ProRes, 422 Quicktime backup file

- Minimum of 2 film stills

- Film poster

- Trailer (format: mp4 HD 1920 x 1080)

- A logline (one sentence) and a short film description (100 words)

- Director’s photo and short bio.

Files must be delivered on an external hard drive, USB flash drive or sent digitally (WeTransfer, Dropbox or Google Drive), and be received no later than September 1, 2023.

We will be considering waiver requests and provide a response by February 10 and again on March 10. Please fill out the waiver form to be considered and if you have any questions about eligibility, email us at info@menafilmfesitval.com!

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Read our detailed submission guidelines here.