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Screen International has named the five actors and filmmakers selected for Arab Stars of Tomorrow 2024, the eighth edition of the new talent programme for emerging Middle East and North Africa talents.

This year’s line-up includes Moroccan actress Oumaima Barid; Saudi actress Maria Bahrawi; Yemeni producer Mohsen Alkhalfi; Egyptian actor Essam Omar; and Jordanian writer-director Zain Duraie.

Arab Stars of Tomorrow celebrates Arab talent from across the Mena region and highlights the hottest up-and-coming actors, writers and directors who are primed to make their mark in the international industry.

Click on the links below to read the profiles of this year’s stars.

Kaouther Ben Hania on the dress Najla (Lina Elleuch) brings to the club for Mariam (Mariam Al Ferjani): “Since for Beauty And The Dogs I knew from the beginning that it will be shot by night, this blue has something about the night.”

In Kaouther Ben Hania’s intense and unwavering Beauty And The Dogs, we go on an odyssey with Mariam (Mariam Al Ferjani), a Tunisian university student, who encounters during one seemingly endless night, the violence towards women embedded in the structures that govern her home country. The more desperate she becomes, the more the system closes in on her. The more she is in the right, the greater the danger she presents to them.

Sam (Yahya Mahayni) in Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin

The connections to her gripping Oscar-nominated Best International Feature The Man Who Sold His Skin, starring Yahya Mahayni,...

Mohamed Bakri, left, named Best Actor at the awards for Wajib, which also took home the Best Film and Best Screenplay accolades

Wajib was the big winner at the second Annual Critics Awards organised by the Arab Cinema Center. Annemarie Jacir's drama about a father and his ex-pat son coming together in Nazareth to deliver wedding invitations was named Best Film and took home the award for Best Screenplay. Mohamed Bakri, who stars as the film's dad - alongside his real-life son Saleh - was named Best Actor.

The award for Best Director went to the Oscar-nominated Ziad Doueiri for The Insult - exploring a clash between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee - while Mariam Al Ferjani was given the Best Actress prize for her role as a woman who faces a night of hell at the hands of the authorities after being raped in Beauty And The Dogs.

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Pacific Rim: Uprising [my review]

Emily Carmichael and Kira Snyder cowrite this science fiction action movie about soldiers in giant robots who fight monsters. Features a gender balanced cast including Cailee Spaeny, Tian Jing, Adria Arjona, Ivanna Sakhno, and Rinko Kikuchi. (male director)

Unsane [my review]

Claire Foy stars as a woman caught up in a bureaucratic snafu at a mental hospital. (male writers and director)

Midnight Sun [my review]

Bella Thorne stars as a teenage girl who finally meets the boy of her dreams. (male writer and director)

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Beauty and the Dogs [IMDb] pictured

Kaouther Ben Hania writes and directs this drama about a young Tunisian woman (Mariam Al Ferjani) fighting for justice after she is raped.

Madame [IMDb]

Amanda Sthers writes and directs this satire about a wealthy woman (Toni Collette) and her maid (Rossy de Palma).

Elis [IMDb]

Andréia Horta stars in this biopic of Brazilian singer Elis Regina. Cowritten by Vera Egito.

Fear should never be underestimated as a means for oppression or motivation because there are few emotions more potent. This is why totalitarian regimes use it as a weapon to silence those who dare find the courage to stand up for their rights. They sow fear into the masses, using it to gather support for new laws pretending to protect citizens that actually just insulate those in the position to make them. And if a rebellion somehow proves successful, adjustment isn’t instantaneous. Those who believed they were above the law are backed into a wall in which they must band together for self-preservation. Add conservative religious customs to the equation and those who become free realize the lie. Freedom as an ideal ensures one thing: someone else remains in chains.

This notion is central to Kaouther Ben Hania’s Beauty and the Dogs. It presents a post-Ben Ali dictatorship...

"I wish we'd met in better circumstances." Oscilloscope Labs has debuted an official Us trailer for a highly acclaimed film titled Beauty and the Dogs, which premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews from critics. Made by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, the film is presented as a number of various long take shots, without many cuts in total. Beauty and the Dogs tells the story of a young Tunisian woman who is raped by police officers on her way home from a party, and looks back at the events of the evening. Newcomer Mariam Al Ferjani stars, with a cast including Ghanem Zrelli, Noomen Hamda, and Mohamed Akkari. The film is a very bold, raw, unapologetic look at the abhorrent culture of victim-shaming, conservative morality, and male hypocrisy prevalent in society today (and specifically in Tunisia). I heard so many friends raving about this film at Cannes,...

Oscilloscope has picked up U.S. rights to Kaouther Ben Hania’s Beauty and the Dogs, which is screening in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar. The distributor plans a theatrical release later in the year.

The film, produced by Habib Attia and Nadim Cheikhrouha, concerns a young Tunisian woman who is raped by police officers and must fight for her rights.

“Kaouther Ben Hania’s film is an auteurist achievement with a tour-de-force central performance from a sure-to-be future star, Mariam Al Ferjani. Honestly, this is the real Wonder Woman to see on the big screen, and we’re counting on...

Un Certain Regard film heading to multiple territories.

O-Scope has picked up Us rights from Jour2Fête to Ben Hania’s Un Certain Regard entry Beauty And The Dogs.

Rights also closed in Benelux (Cinéart), France (Jour2Fête), Switzerland (Trigon), Sweden (Folkets Bio), Middle East (Mc Distribution), Greece (Strada), and China (Blueshare /Time-in-Portrait).

Mariam Al Ferjani plays a young Tunisian woman who is raped by police officers after leaving a party and propelled into a harrowing night in which she must fight for her rights even though justice lies on the side of her tormentors.

Habib Attia and Nadim Cheikhrouha produced the film and O-Scope plans a theatrical release later this year.

“Kaouther Ben Hania’s film is an auteurist achievement with a tour-de-force central performance from a sure to be future-star, Mariam Al Ferjani,” O-Scope’s Dan Berger said.

“Honestly, this is the real Wonder Woman to see on the big screen and we’re counting...

Oscilloscope has obtained U.S. rights to Kaouther Ben Hania’s Cannes Un Certain Regard entry “Beauty and the Dogs.” O-Scope plans a theatrical release for the film later in the year.

Per the film’s official synopsis: “When Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, is raped by police officers after leaving a party, she is propelled into a harrowing night in which she must fight for her rights even though justice lies on the side of her tormentors. Employing impressive cinematic techniques, Kaouther Ben Hania’s ‘Beauty and the Dogs’ tells an urgent, unapologetic, and important story head-on.”

Read More: Cannes 2017: 9 Hot Acquisition Titles That Will Have Buyers Chasing Foreign Films

O-Scope’s Dan Berger said of the acquisition, “Kaouther Ben Hania’s film is an auteurist achievement with a tour-de-force central performance from a sure to be future-star, Mariam Al Ferjani. Honestly, this is the real Wonder Woman...

Oscilloscope has acquired U.S. rights to Beauty And The Dogs (Aala Kaf Ifrit), the film that’s playing in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section. A 2017 release is planned for the pic written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, about a young Tunisian woman (Mariam Al Ferjani) who is raped by police officers after leaving a party and is propelled into a harrowing night in which she must fight for her rights even though justice lies on the side of her…...