Doha Film Festival Unveils International Competition Lineup For Inaugural Edition
Qatar’s Doha Film Festival has announced the International Feature Film Competition lineup for its inaugural edition in November.
It is the main competition of the new event, spearheaded by the Doha Film Institute, which will mete out awards worth than $300,000.
The selection features 13 world cinema titles exploring contemporary themes from ecological crisis to war displacement, with titles including Cannes Un Certain Regard Best Director winner Once Upon a Time in Gaza; Iraqi 2026 Oscar entry The President’s Cake, and Qatar-based director Suzannah Mirghani’s Cotton Queen, which premiered recently in Venice. (Scroll down for full list).
“These powerful artistic expressions represent the creativity and resilience of humanity and demonstrate the capability of film to shape the future of our societies, ” said DFI CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi.
“Through these stories that engage empathy, reflection and connection, we are creating safe spaces for meaningful dialogue to counter prevailing narratives.
The new festival will run from November 20 to 28 November 2025, in various locations across the Qatari capital of Doha including the Katara Cultural Village, Msheireb Downtown Doha, and the Museum of Islamic Art.
It expands on the DFI’s long-running family-focused festival of Ajyal which ran for more than a decade during the same period.
The International Feature Film Competition will feature a jury five industry experts who select winners in Best Narrative (with prize money of US$75,000), Best Documentary (US$50,000), Best Artistic Achievement for feature narrative or documentary (US$45,000), and Best Performance (US$15,000) categories. A certificate of Special Mention will also be presented to a feature narrative or documentary.
The selections for the other competitive strands – spanning the International Short Film Competition, Ajyal Film Competition, judged by the festival’s youth jury, and the Made in Qatar Competition – will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
The full International Competition Lineup
Khartoum (Sudan/UK/Germany/Qatar)
Dirs. Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed and Philip Cox
Cotton Queen (Sudan/Germany/France/Palestine/Egypt/Qatar)
Dir. Suzannah Mirghani
Once Upon a Time in Gaza (Palestine/France/Germany/Portugal/Qatar)
Dirs. Tarzan & Arab Nasser
With Hassan in Gaza (Germany/Palestine/France/Qatar)
Dir. Kamal Aljafari
The President’s Cake (Iraq/USA/Qatar)
Dir. Hasan Hadi
My Father and Qaddafi (Libya/Lebanon/Qatar)
Dir. Jihan K
Renoir (Japan/France/Singapore/The Philippines/Indonesia/Qatar)
Dir. Chie Hayakawa
Sleepless City (Spain/France/Qatar)
Dir. Guillermo García López
The Last Shore (Belgium/France/Qatar)
Dir. Jean-Francois Ravagnan
The Reserve(Mexico/Qatar)
Dir. Pablo Pérez Lombardini
Divine Comedy (Iran/Italy/France/Germany/Turkey)
Dir. by Ali Asgari i
Hair, Paper, Water (Belgium/France/Vietnam)
Dirs. Truong Minh Quý and Nicolas Graux
Blue Heron (Canada/Hungary)
Dir. Sophy Romvari
