On Friday evening, the curtain fell on the activities of the Doha Prize for Dramatic Writing by the Ministry of Culture in Qatar in its first session, by announcing the winners of its three prizes in the categories: theater, cinema and television, with a deadline coming after two years that includes other creative categories, most notably child drama and new stories.

During a ceremony hosted by the Qatar National Theater, the Committee of Trustees of the Doha Prize for Dramatic Writing revealed the names of its recipients, who shared equally the total value of the award, which amounts to $ 300,000, distributed into categories: theatrical script, TV script and movie script.

One winner in each category

The Algerian Bouri Mustafa won the theatrical text award for his text "Memories from the Next Time", after a competitive track that included: Ali Abd al-Nabi al-Zaidi from Iraq for his text "The Ten Minutes War", and 3 theatrical works from Egypt belonging to: Said Hamid Shehata on His text is “Al-Man the Temple,” and Abd al-Mu'min Ahmad on his text “The Path of the Sultans,” and Muhammad Ibrahim Mahrous on his text “The Strange”.

And in the Best Film Screenplay award, Omar Kartah from Morocco won for his text "Looking for Juliet", after a competition with Razan Mustafa from Syria and the text "Sonata of Hope", and from Egypt: Mafi Maher for her text "Maryam", and Wael Hamdy for his text " The Great Eid, "and Hisham Abdel Majid Ahmed, for his text" The Christ of Darfur. "

As for the TV script award, it went to the Jordanian Hilmi Al-Asmar for his text "The Black Grass", after he competed against Wedad Al-Kuwari from Qatar for its text "Candle of Glass", and Samih Al-Jabbas from Egypt for his text "Call at a later time", and Muhammad Farhan Bulbul from Syria on the authority Its text is “Al-Masirah”, and Mustafa Ahmed Al-Khalifah from Sudan wrote “Al-Hariq (Al-Hadq Archers)”.

A tribute to the Qatari writer and theater director, Abdul Rahman Al-Mannai (Al-Jazeera)

Among what the Doha Prize for Dramatic Writing sought is encouraging Qatari and other distinguished tender drama writers to produce and write dramatic works in the areas of dramatic text (theatrical, television and cinematic) that would promote public taste and enrich the drama scene with distinguished texts.

A window to creativity

Qatari Minister of Culture and Sports Salah Ghanem Al-Ali said that the award opened a new window on dramatic works in the Arab world, to convey reality and address its issues in artistic and creative forms, support drama writers and upgrade their work.

In turn, the secretary of the Doha Prize for Dramatic Writing, Jawaher Al-Badr, said that the purpose of the award is to encourage writers to contribute to enriching the dramatic arena with creative texts full of human meanings and noble values, and more expressive of community issues and collective awareness.

In a statement to Al-Jazeera Net, she considered that dramatic writing is an effective tool for developing awareness of human issues, which calls for the intellectual and aesthetic development of the discourse of theater, film and television writers, with the aim of promoting the values ​​of freedom, justice and human dignity.

The board of trustees of the award consisted of 12 members of critics and intellectuals from 8 Arab and foreign countries, headed by Professor of Criticism and Drama at Qatar Community College Marzouq Bashir, distributed according to experiences and methodological and geographical diversity, with the aim of ensuring transparency and objectivity in the process of selecting winning texts.

While the number of dramatic texts participating in the award reached 819 diverse drama texts, including 316 theatrical texts, 77 television screenplays, and 426 cinematic scenarios, from 29 countries.

The Ministry of Culture decided to organize the award activities once every two years, in order to allow enough time for creators and writers to present and revise the finest works, and to enable the jury to take the necessary time to consider these innovations and dissect the best for the final competitions.

The ceremony was an opportunity to honor the Qatari writer and theater director, Abdul Rahman Al-Mannai, in recognition of his distinguished work in theater, authored and directed, as one of the creative figures in the cultural arena in Qatar, and the owner of an art school whose artistic material and issues were inspired by the Qatari and Gulf heritage, and gave a lot to the art of the wood.

The ceremony of coronation of the winners also included musical connections made by the artistic band of the Center for Music Affairs, evoking the most famous dramas that remained stuck in the Arab artistic memory, which were drawn to them by the Arab and Gulf viewers in different periods of time, and left their prominent impact emotionally and emotionally.

It is noteworthy that the launch of the Drama Writing Award came during the organization of the Drama Writers Forum in Qatar in November 2019, during a symposium on Arab drama and prospects for civil change, in which critics, artists and writers from Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia participated. And Turkey.