Despite the ongoing closure of airports, cultural centers and public spaces due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Culture Resource continues to support artists and cultural workers with mobility grants so that they can participate in activities outside their countries when travel is possible. We are therefore pleased to announce the grantees of the first round of Wijhat 2021. The program received 32 applications from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Sudan and Syria. Of these, 20 were for international and 12 were for regional travels. The jury selected 4 (all for international travels).
Grantees
Alyaa Musa, Sudan / writer, director and film producer
Destination: Sudan → Luxembourg, France and Spain
Itinerary:
Alyaa will attend the EAVE Producers Workshop after her feature length documentary, Becoming Omer Khairy, was selected for this training and development workshop. The year-long program focuses on developing fiction or documentary films or TV series that participants are working on and is attended by around 50 promising producers from Europe and some Arab countries. With its multifaceted curriculum and team of experienced producers and other experts in various aspects of filmmaking, the workshop aims to hone the skills of the producers keen to develop their companies and open horizons for their work.
Hossam Hilal, Egypt / musician, composer
Destination: Egypt → Portugal
Itinerary:
Hossam plans to take part in the Zaratan residency program in Lisbon. Zaratan hosts a select group of international artists, offering them a space to develop their creative practices in a fertile collaborative environment where emerging artists come together with more experienced ones to share ideas, personal experiences and different cultures. Hossam will be working on several compositions that fuse Egyptian and Portuguese European musical cultures. He will also participate in various artistic discussions and activities. At the end of his stay he will present a concert featuring his pieces combined with a visual art show.
Kamar Mansour and her band, Morocco / singer and composer
Destination: Morocco → Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Itinerary:
Kamar and her band will take part in the Festival Mondial de Musique des Femmes d’Ici et d’Ailleurs (FMMF). The festival sponsors a competition to discover outstanding female musical talents from around the world. After taking part in the competition, Kamar and her band were invited to perform at the event which showcases the unique musical styles and artistry of the participants as well as their values and traditions. Kamar, who will be representing Moroccan women at the festival, incorporates Moroccan zajal verse and traditional musical forms in her work. She will perform the title song of her first album in concert with her band.
Serge Mouawad, Lebanon / classical ballet instructor
Destination: Lebanon → Russia
Itinerary:
Serge will take part in an intensive professional workshop on the original classical dance of Agrippina Vaganova and attend a course at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in Saint Petersburg which will conclude with a professional ballet performance. He will receive intensive training from some of the foremost Russian ballet instructors in order to improve his own technique as the program is reputed for the individual attention given to each student.
Jury
Cathy Khattar, Lebanon / director of grants at the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC); writer for children who fosters writing workshops for children in Arabic; member of Assabil Association Friends of Public Libraries.
Hamdi Makhlouf, Tunisia / oudist and composer; PhD in musicology from Sorbonne University, Paris; assistant professor and researcher at the University of Tunis High Institute of Music; director of the Carthage Music Days festival from 2015 to 2017; academic and artistic coordinator at Ennejma Ezzahra Center for Arab and Mediterranean Music since 2017.
Mohammed Alomd’a, Sudan / documentary and fiction film director; programmer for the Sudan Film Factory and the Sudan Independent Film Festival; cofounder of Station Films which contributed to producing a number of award winning films such as “You Will Die at 20” and “Goodbye Julia.”
The Wijhat program aims to promote the arts and culture from the Arab region, both regionally and internationally, by supporting the regional or international travels of artists and cultural actors from this region so as to facilitate their participation in cultural events and activities that enable them to present their work to diverse audiences in wider regional and/or international contexts, to exchange knowledge and expertise with peers, to build their professional capacities or to develop an artistic project.
