Al Noor Holdings launches $200M film fund (VAR)

By Nancy Tartaglione

Qatar media group Al Noor Holdings has launched a $200 million fund to finance and produce up to 15 features for the international market in the next five years. Al Noor will invest $40 million into the fund directly, with the remaining coin coming from private investors across the Gulf region, Variety reports. The fund will be aimed squarely at Hollywood and international projects.

The news emanates from the Doha Tribeca Film Festival which is taking place this weekend.

The Al Noor Fund is looking to finance ethically based, family-friendly projects.

"If you want to invest in the film industry, the best place to invest is Hollywood," Al Noor Holdings chairman Ahmed Al-Mustafawi Al-Hashemi told Variety. "They have the established business center. No business is without risk but we have been studying this for some time now and we believe that a 10% return on our investment is available. We believe in this business."

The first projects are expected to be announced in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the Doha Tribeca Festival kicked off Thursday with Martin Scorsese, Mira Nair, Ben Kingsley and Elia Suleiman among those in attendance.

While neighboring Gulf emirates Dubai and Abu Dhabi now have high-profile festivals, Qatar has thus far stayed out of the spotlight. Abu Dhabi has also made a series of multimillion-dollar financing deals with Hollywood via its $1 billion production arm, Imagenation.

That now looks set to change, says Variety, with the arrival of Qatar's fest and fund. Having already turned Qatar into a TV biz player thanks to Doha-based Al-Jazeera, local execs aim to make the tiny Gulf state a major film player, the trade says.