The annual Palm Springs International ShortFest has announced its 2021 lineup that will showcase 295 films from June 22 to 28. Eight films from the Arab world will be among the titles screening at this year’s event, which includes 32 world premieres.

It is the biggest event for short films in North America, a designated awards-qualifying event for the Oscars, Baftas and their Spanish equivalent the Goyas, and offers prizes of up to $25,000 for winners.

This year, however, Shortfest takes on even greater significance as the first festival in California to hold all of its screenings in cinemas, albeit with limited capacity.

The festival’s Arab selections were made from six MENA countries including Palestine, Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia.

The Arab movies that are set to premiere include Borekas, Al-Sit, Drought, Ain’t No Time for Women, I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face, The Promised, What We Don’t Know About Mariam, The Girls Who Burnt the Night, and Nour Shams.

Saleh Saadi’s semi-autobiographical film Borekas is named after the popular Palestinian snack his father would treat him to on a weekend. The film centres on a father and son granted an unexpected opportunity to bond after their car breaks down on the way to the airport. The film is Saadi’s first and competes for the Best LGBT+ Short prize.

Suzannah Mirghani’s Al-Sit tells the story of a 15-year-old Sudanese girl called Nafisa who’s torn between the love of her life in her cotton-farming village and her parents’ plans for an arranged marriage abroad. It features in Palm Springs’ Women on Top section, where it will compete for the Best Live Action Short Over 15 Minutes and Young Cineastes prizes.

When two Saudi sisters are refused permission to go to the grocery store while helping their mother prepare for an engagement party, things escalate surprisingly quickly. Sara Mesfer’s The Girls Who Burnt the Night will compete in California for the Best Live Action Short Over 15 Minutes and Best Student International Short prizes.

Shams’s only son desperately wants to leave Saudi Arabia to try his luck at becoming a rapper. Shams, however, is a little more traditional and simply wants her golden boy to settle down and have a family. Director and screenwriter Faiza Ambah’s Nour Shams will compete for Best Live Action Short Over 15 minutes.

The only Lebanese film at this year’s festival, Remi Itani’s Drought follows Carine, a Beirut property agent who frequently finds herself in empty apartments waiting for clients to show up. The film will compete for Best Live Action Short Under 15 Minutes.

What We Don’t Know About Mariam centres on Mariam, who goes to the hospital with her family after suffering from severe pain in her abdomen. After an examination, tensions escalate between Mariam and her husband. It will compete for Best Live Action Short Over 15 Minutes prize.

Ahmed El Ghoneimy’s documentary The Promised details the tension between the government-appointed guards who watch over the historic Fustat site in Old Cairo and local residents. The film will screen in the festival’s City Symphony section, featuring titles about life in cities around the world, and compete for the Best Documentary Short prize.

I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face will compete for the Best of the Festival Award and Young Cineastes Award.

Ain’t No Time for Women from Tunisian-Canadian director Sarra El Abed, which is set in Tunis and features dialogue in Arabic and French. This intimate documentary is set in a Tunis hair salon that becomes an arena for political discussion on the eve of the country’s presidential elections. The chaos – and frequent humour – of the lively discussions often mirror the turmoil of Tunisia’s democracy.

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Built in 1980, Bahrain Radio, with seven radio stations, was long due for a revamp. The recent $6.5m turnkey project, which is the first phase, has launched this facility into the digital realm. The entire facility has been refurbished, from nine radio studios and control rooms to the MCR (Master Control Room) and CAR (Central Apparatus Room), with a parallel overhaul of furniture, equipment, automation systems, radio library and acoustics.

By deploying digital solutions in all areas of the facility, the radio section of Bahrain’s MIA has essentially migrated out of an analogue environment. Dubai systems integrator (SI) GloCom was tasked with the challenge of undertaking this overhaul right in the midst of the 2020 lockdown, and it delivered, ensuring that the existing service was not disrupted at any point in time, and also digitising the department’s radio library archive. While the main centre of the project was in Isa Town, related civil work also took place at various other MIA sites.

Bahrain Radio is one of many projects the MIA has completed in recent months, with more due for completion this year and next. Much of this renovation has been possible thanks to the support of Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Bahrain, says Eng Abdulla Ahmed Albalooshi, Assistant Undersecretary for Technical Affairs at the MIA.

“Our radio station and studios were built in 1980. They were really old, and we used to have the occasional breakdown with no support available for them. All our FM and AM stations are processed in these studios and go through the MCR; our radio channels are also available on satellite and OTT. With this project, we have transferred our entire radio technology to a digital platform and have added a few elements that will make life easier for the production people in our radio department,” he explains.

At the core of the set-up is a Lawo-based MADI architecture that covers all seven on-air studios and allows the control room to serve as a self-operating studio. These on-air studios can also be connected to two of the production studios for music or drama. A third production studio has been redesigned for mix-mastering. All seven on-air studios are designed to enable any FM station to log in and go live from any studio.

The MCR, the heart of the station, includes a 15 FM station automation system with full redundancy, enabling the department to scale up in the future and add another six FM stations. It also includes four 80″ LED walls, a brand-new Lawo Vistool for audio monitoring and a Lawo VSM monitoring solution. A big part of the project was the replacement of a legacy Dalet system with the latest radio automation system from RCS. The studios are connected with the MCR through fibre (MADI), with physical AES/ANA cables for redundancy. The CAR was also designed with a centralised audio router (MADI) from Lawo.

“It created an opportunity for us to recruit young Bahraini engineers and graduates fresh out of university. They are more familiar with this workflow and have gravitated naturally towards it” – Eng Abdulla Ahmed Albalooshi, Assistant Undersecretary for Technical Affairs at the MIA

Other important elements of the project are DDP storage and an audio archiving solution from Xendata, with its tape library integrated with RCS Archive2go. Also included are AVT’s on-air telephone management solution, RF distribution of on- and off-air signals, and compliance recording and monitoring. The whole area is integrated with the transmission and uplink facility.

Albalooshi elaborates. “The video wall in the MCR helps operators see the graphic bars, the output of these studios and the radio satellite channels, along with all the clocks and the GPS. The environment at the MCR now entirely comprises routers and displays, as opposed to patch panels and the wiring from the past. We also have a logging system so they log all the data and programmes into the database – so if anything goes wrong, they can immediately check the audio file. The monitoring system at the MCR allows them to see the quality of each of the titles and take necessary action.

“Every studio was also given a different theme and colour scheme to make it more friendly and attractive for the staff who work there for long hours. We also created a three-camera studio with a video wall that includes furniture from Lund and Halsey. These include standing position desks to give viewers different angles.”

GloCom undertook a carefully planned design, step-by-step decommissioning, on-air migration, execution and training despite Covid-19 challenges, notes Zahid Mirza, President & Chairman at GloCom Ltd. “We undertook a complete refurbishment of each of the radio studios, followed by detailed acoustics measurements and installation of new technical furniture, new equipment and thereafter its configuration and commissioning.”

Glocom had a 22-strong implementation team in Bahrain – a project manager, two project engineers, four site engineers and 15 technicians – with an average of 10 people on-site at any given time. But new and unexpected challenges arose with the arrival of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown and flight restrictions.

“This project was contracted to us in October 2019, but Covid-19 resulted in severe challenges in terms of shipments, permits to work on-site and so on – but we worked closely with the customer and our logistics team to circumvent this. Our team worked around the clock due to the restriction on the number of engineers allowed on-site at any given time. By holding video conferencing calls with the team in different countries, we were able to minimise and mitigate these challenges and deliver the project on time,” Mirza explains.

Albalooshi agrees, saying the lockdown called for further “coordination between the engineering department, GloCom and the radio stations”.

“There were also technical and operational complexities for GloCom to address. The channels were on air. Shifting one studio system to the other and ensuring people were happy with the set-up and removing the bulk of spaghetti wire was quite challenging. We also didn’t have the drawings and routings for some of the old wiring, and that was a big concern. We couldn’t afford to make any mistakes while putting in new cables.”

Despite these obstacles, the project, signed off in October 2020, was delivered on time. Along with the total renovation of the MCR and CAR, GloCom migrated a whopping 80,000 hours of radio programming to a Xendata-grade archiving storage. In addition, Cisco 9200 supplied the AoIP and management network infrastructure (16 x 48 port Cisco switches), and audio solutions were sourced from Genelec, Neumann, Sennheiser, RAMI Audio, RME, Sonifex, Yellowtec, Focusrite and Big Knob.

For GloCom, one of the biggest challenges was managing the workflow of the Quran station. “With our highly qualified engineers, and with support of the MIA team, we achieved that without an operator. With the successful integration of the RCS automation and Lawo, all the stations played the Azan on time for one calendar year, without any delay.”

Abdullah added that his team was roped in this time to make choices on solutions. This resulted in the decision to deploy RCS automation, ingest and traffic systems to provide centralised content ingest and playout in the redesigned system.

“We got the production team involved in selecting the automation system, and they chose RCS. Making them a part of this selection just made the whole adaptation a lot easier. RCS controls everything in this setup, even the mixer. It was a great collaborative effort between the technical and radio people, which made it all the more successful.”

Various RCS tools and software have been incorporated, which also presented staff training opportunities at Bahrain Radio. The team was trained extensively on the Lawo, RCS, AVT Triology, Xendata and DDP Storage systems, among others, by the GloCom team.

“We have around 15 staff from the technical and radio departments trained on the RCS automation system. RCS had a lot of tools that our other teams can use as well. Even our marketing people have been trained in using the platform, so now they know exactly how many ads have gone on air. The programming people are happy because they know how many times a song has been played for copyright uses. RCS also uses the timings of the Azan correctly,” explains Albalooshi.

He adds that unlike most broadcasters, who have had to struggle with training their staff, the MIA is fortunate that most of its engineering staff are young. “Most of the old generation has retired, and it created an opportunity for us to recruit young Bahraini engineers and graduates fresh out of university. They are more familiar with this workflow and have gravitated naturally towards it.”

GloCom staff have been stationed at Bahrain Radio for a two-year period to “support the system and train our engineers to ensure knowledge transfer”, explains Albalooshi, who lauds GloCom for working from midnight into the early morning most days to ensure work did not clash with on-air radio schedules.

The MIA has a more ambitious plan to monetise the facility. To that effect, a studio has been designed for the production of music videos and drama series, equipped with state-of-the-art Avid equipment and the latest technology required to produce songs and dramas on a professional level, says Albalooshi. The team has plans to rent this studio out.

In addition, the MIA is gearing up to attract six private radio channels. Popular Indian FM station Radio Mirchi launched on 104.2FM in Bahrain a month ago as part of this plan, and is using one of MIA’s nine studios and its new facility.

“We have already completed work on the new building that will house the new private radio stations,” explains Albalooshi, adding that the MIA will release one frequency in an auction for another private radio station within a month.

And that’s not all. The MIA is currently building a brand-new news centre, which is 40% done with an expected completion date of November 2021. Several tenders have been released for this project, with more on the way for lighting, equipment and décor. In short, Covid-19 hasn’t stopped Bahrain forging ahead with its broadcast projects.

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Dubai-based broadcast company, Channel 2 Group Corporation and Fun Asia Network (FAN) have launched Talk 100.3 – the UAE’s only South Asian sport and business radio station.

The new station features two live daily shows every week from Sunday to Thursday including breakfast and drive time slots – rounded-off by specialised hourly segments from 11 AM – 4 PM including the business midday wrap at 1 PM and sports highlight with business reports from around the world and subcontinent throughout the day.

Talk 100.3 features well-known and established radio presenters including Sobia Khan, Vivek Sanil and Anjan Ganesh, who return to the airways on Talk 100.3.

Following the launch of Talk 100.3, the station kicks off the cricket season with the ICC World Test Cricket Championship 2021 commencing on June 18, 2021, with international commentator Boria Majumdar taking the commentary box live from the Talk 100.3 studios.

Commenting on the launch, Sam Thakkar, Fun Asia Group CEO, said: “To say we’re pretty excited that this day has come! Talk 100.3 has been a long time coming – and we know it’s what the UAE has been missing. The Fun Asia Network continues to grow its presence in the UAE offering audiences high-quality content– from music to market news, business trends, financial forums and the overall global economy.”

Ajay Sethi, Chairman and MD Channel 2 Group Corporation, added: “We are excited to partner with Fun Asia, not only to grow the audience of their existing range of great stations, but to develop a whole new format, combining our sporting expertise with their mass reach and broadcasting.”

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MAD Solutions has announced the joining of three more young actors to MAD Rising Celebrity; Hassan Malek and Nour El Nabawy from Egypt, and Mustafa Shahata from Sudan.

MAD Rising Celebrity is a unit dedicated to launching up-and-coming film and TV acting talents from across the Arab world.

MAD Rising Celebrity has previously announced offering its services to a list of rising acting talents, namely; Bunna Khalid (Sudan), Fady ElSayed (Egypt), Fares Landalousi (Tunisia), Fatima Al Banawi (KSA), Mayan El Sayed (Egypt), Mohammad Nizar (Jordan), Sarrah Abdelrahman (Egypt), and Tara Abboud (Palestine-Jordan).

Hassan Malek is a young Egyptian actor, who made a remarkable performance in the serial drama Khaly Balak Men Zizi, opposite Amina Khalil and Mohamed Mamdouh, which premiered in Ramadan 2021. He played the role of Serag, a socially intelligent university student who becomes friends with his professor and helps the latter solve his personal problems. He made his foray into acting, capturing the audience’s attention with his performance in Le’bet El Nesyan (2020), which was headlined by Dina El Sherbiny. Afterwards, he worked with Jamila Awad in Ela Ana and participated in VIU’s original series Wadi El Jinn.

Born in 1997 in Khartoum, Mustafa Shahata is a young Sudanese actor of Egyptian origin, who began his acting career through introducing comedy sketches along with his friends, to land his debut leading role after that in Netflix’s You Will Die at Twenty that previously won Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film at Venice Film Festival, Golden Tanit Award at the Carthage Film Festival (JCC), and was Sudan’s Official Submission to the Academy Awards 2020. He also participated in the Berlinale Talents 2020, and was selected as a jury member at Ajyal Film Festival in Doha.

Nour El Nabawy is a young Egyptian actor who studied acting and theatre at the University of Santa Monica, and the California State University – Northridge. He began his acting career through a number of plays at the university, to land his breakthrough role after that in Al Ekhteyar 2: Regal El Zel, where he played the role of a fresh-graduate police officer who gets martyred, becoming the youngest martyred police officer.

MAD Rising Celebrity is launched through MAD Solutions’ subsidiary MAD Celebrity which has been harbouring more than 50 of the Arab world’s A-list stars in the entertainment industry, offering them its endorsement services in more than 400 works, and escorted them to more than 100 film festivals and high-end events.

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Artist Jim Wheat will release the entirety of his new crypto-art collection, Heroes and Villains, on NFT marketplace Terra Virtua. The ‘Donald Trump’ series will be the first to drop on Donald Trump’s birthday via an online exhibition on June 14.

Orbital Space has announced that QMR-KWT is due to be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (SLC 40) in Florida on June 24, 2021. QMR-KWT – ‘Moon of Kuwait’ – translated from Arabic – is a 1U CubeSat and will be Kuwait’s first Satellite.

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New Line Cinema has partnered with Warner Bros. Animation to produce an original anime set in Tolkien’s fantasy world.