DOHA: At the cusp of October and November two brands were wed in the Qatari capital. From October 29 to November 1, the inaugural edition of the Doha-Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF) played itself out, the latest exercise in brand expansion involving a Western cultural institution and Gulf Arab capital. The four-day event was crammed with activities. At 30 films, the official programme was relatively modest but stocked with watchable, more or less new, movies. Heavy hitters like Joel and Ethan Coen’s “A Serious Man” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” screened alongside such international art-house fair as Elia Suleiman’s “The Time that Remains” and Asghar Farhadi’s “About Elly.”

The screenings were complemented by a handful of industry-style panels and televised “master classes” involving filmmakers like Suleiman and Mira Nair (“Amelia,” 2009). The latter were destined for broadcast on “The Fabulous Picture Show,” the movie programme on Al-Jazeera-English hosted by Amanda Palmer – who, in addition to working as the network’s director of entertainment broadcasting, doubles as DTFF’s executive director.

The good intentions and beautiful images were augmented by some financial heft when the Qatari media group Alnoor Holdings announced the launch of its $200 million film fund, the second most lucrative in the region after Abu Dhabi’s $1 billion finance body Imagenation. 

Alnoor said that over the next five years it intends to bankroll 15 films destined for the international market, which will draw upon Hollywood talent. The next day, Alnoor’s managers said they would finance a $150 million biopic on the Prophet Mohammad. It will be produced by Hollywood veteran Barrie Osborne, whose credits include “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Matrix.”

The product of some years of discussions, DTFF was officially unveiled last November when Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Tribeca’s three founders – Robert DeNiro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff – signed an agreement sealing a long-term business partnership.

The emir’s daughter and head of the Qatar Museums Authority, Shaykha Mayassa was an intern in Rosenthal’s office, it is said, and Doha-Tribeca was inspired by her proposal that the festival enter into a joint venture with her country.

Geoffrey Gilmore, the chief creative officer and board member of Tribeca Enterprises, is one of the film-festival veterans involved in the Doha-Tribeca initiative. Earlier this year he joined Tribeca after nearly two decades as director of the Sundance Film Festival, where he was recognized as one of the great advocates of independent cinema in the US. He is as well placed as anyone to discuss Tribeca’s goals and ambitions in entering this partnership with brand Qatar.

“I think Tribeca was out in front of other institutions I know, in seeing the global aspect of the film industry,” Gilmore said. “A couple of years after it started it took a program to Beijing. It’s taken programs to Africa, to Europe. It’s always had a sense that the world was not limited to just the US, that you pay attention to the world. It’s because of that understanding that this project really got going.

“The agenda keeps evolving. I think Tribeca sees itself as … an institution of complex identities. We’re certainly involved in festivals, in education. We’re gonna be involved in distribution and ideally other kinds of activities that have to do with developing a new paradigm for the independent film industry. 

“This has been a learning process … Neither side has tried to impose its will on the other … In a way both sides had the power to push back and both sides had the power to take a leadership role, and that’s kind of been the evolution.”

Though there is something unique in DTFF, it is also the latest development in an ongoing trend in the boutique states of the Gulf. In the last decade or so, influential figures have sought to diversify the international portfolio of individual cities by creating institutions dedicated to high culture – whether staging it, selling it or producing it.

Though Doha hosted its first documentary film festival back in 2001, the first feature film initiative in the Gulf was undertaken six years ago, with the launch of  the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF). DIFF has since grown from a non-competitive festival to one awarding handsome prizes to films in Arabic-language and Africa-Asia competitions, as well as a number of smaller film-development awards to Arab filmmakers.

DIFF’s role was later complemented by its sister emirate of Abu Dhabi, which launched its Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF) in October 2007. Scheduled earlier in the year and offering more-lucrative prizes to films willing to premier in Abu Dhabi, MEIFF has been DIFF’s first real competition in the region. 

That competitive edge has been cemented by MEIFF’s being fueled by Abu Dhabi’s oil economy, making it more or less immune to the vagaries of financial meltdowns like the one witnessed over the last year. It’s a financial cushion that Qatar, which sits atop the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, can also offer to DTFF.

Complementing this florescence of film festivals has been the franchising of Western cultural institutions in the Gulf. The Louvre and Gugenheim museums and the New York Film Academy are among the recognized brands to have set up shop in Abu Dhabi. Skeptics have remarked that financial opportunity has erased any snobbishness these institutions may feel toward their partners; it isn’t difficult to see the relationship between Doha and Tribeca in similar terms. 

“I don’t think [money] was a primary consideration,” Gilmore averred. “It was part of the relationship but not a primary consideration. In a weird way, if it were just about being paid off as a consultant, I don’t think we’d have a leadership role. I think we’d be taking a step back and just offering advice. And we really see it as part of our identity.

“Tribeca started a film festival to help revitalize a community [in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers]. It succeeded in that and the project didn’t end. The project moved forward, sometimes without a long-term plan. I can’t tell you that there’s a long-term plan at this moment, even in terms of what we’re going with the next step. But I do know that the sensibility and the outlook is long-term and global.”

Gilmore said he sees DTFF’s relationship with DIFF and MEIFF to be more complementary than competitive. 

“In the future we hope there will be some collaboration,” he said. “I can’t predict that, but I’ve spoke to people about it and we’ll see what can happen.” 

When he was still with Sundance, Gilmore was involved in a highly successful series of script-development labs, run in various international locations, including Jordan. He sees an expanded Tribeca as following a similar path.

“Sundance was a nonprofit venture that was very much about lab work and assisting individual artists. It wasn’t nationally oriented in a very specific way or oriented in an overall rubric; it saw itself as helping American independent film. There were projects like the labs in Jordan … that helped individual groups of filmmakers. That’s something I can see us doing as well. Sundance had several branches, I think Tribeca will probably have several branches.”

Film funding is another facet of production to which Gilmore isn’t averse. 

“It’s not something we’re set up for at this point,” he said. “In terms of the funds that are being set up now, it’s not something that we’re centrally a part of and neither is Shaykha Mayyasa … Do I see that down the line as something that could be part-and-parcel of what we’re doing? Sure. 

“It’s funny you know, these funds. There were funds announced in Abu Dhabi; they’ve generated a lot of media attention but no films. [You have to ask] what’s the product that comes out of this? 

“I’m not being skeptical when I say that you announce a fund that’s committed to doing work here. The point is that you need some sort of development fund, some sort of a way to get from point A to point B and down the line. You can’t just say ‘I want to be able to make commercial feature films’ and then wish it into being. You’ve got to develop it. 

“Do we see ourselves as part of that process? Absolutely. That’s part of what the educational labs can be here. If we lay the foundation for doing script development, we lay the foundation for helping these funds. If we lay the foundation for that, maybe we’ll be part-and-parcel of managing some of that. We’ll see how it evolves. I can anticipate it without, at this point, being very specific because at this point it isn’t very specific.

“I think you’ve got every right to be skeptical until you see what results from it. I see the fact that you can look at these kinds of projects and say: ‘There’s a lot of money being thrown at it and a lot of people are talking about things. Let’s see what emerges.’ So let’s see what emerges. 

“I don’t think we need to wave the flag to prove ourselves to anybody. I’m not trying to suggest that there’s any question about our motivations. But I do understand why people might want to say ‘Let’s see what evolves.’ I have the same questions. This isn’t something that’s rational. It oftentimes moves in fits and starts. It feels like we’re jumping ahead right now.”

DTFF wrapped up Sunday evening at the temporary open-air theatre erected on the grounds of the Qatari capital’s Museum of Islamic Art. The ceremony moved from stand-up comedy to speeches, to performance and fireworks. The festival’s closing-night film was “Cairo Time,” the second feature from Syrian-Canadian writer-director Ruba Nadda. 

Wedged in between, Palmer and Tribeca founders DeNiro, Rosenthal and Hatkoff awarded not one but two audience prizes to directors whose films screened in the first edition. Each prize is worth $50,000.

The first prize, for best festival film, went to the documentary “Team Qatar” (2009), by New York-based UK filmmaker Liz Mermin. The film follows the creation of the DTFF host country’s first high-school debating team. 

The second prize, for best Arabic language film, went to “Pomegranates and Myrrh” (2008). Palestinian writer-director Najwa Najjar’s first feature is a consummately Palestinian tale of land expropriation and arrest, dabkeh and infidelity denied.