On May 9, 2018, the first day of the Cannes Film Festival, I excitedly got onto the train direction “Cannes Ville”. As I sat down, I noticed that the lady sitting next to me was holding the Official Cannes 2018 planner. She was looking at the schedule for the next upcoming days, and making notes of the screenings she wanted to attend. Before I could say anything, I found her jotting down in her notebook: “Yommedine, 18H ce soir” (Yommedine, 6PM tonight). Though I had already known Yommedine, had made it into the official selection, it was astonishing to see it become reality Once arrived to the Palais des Festivals, I made my way to the Arab Cinema Center’s stand in the Marche du Film. The Arab Cinema Center was founded a few years back, as an initiative to promote the Arab film industry at international film festivals and markets abroad, as well as to create à network of producers, directors, distributors and the like, both Arab and foreign, to encourage collaboration and facilitate new projects. The stand was consistently bustling, between meetings and passersby coming to pick up the…
