Oran's new Basta Cinéma will coach seven Algerian film projects for a jury of industry professionals

The commissariat of the Oran International Arab Film Festival announced on Monday, October 12, 2026, a new programme called Basta Cinéma, built to develop Algerian film projects. Its first edition will back seven projects in fiction, documentary and animation, and will run from December 19 to 24 in Oran, alongside the festival's 14th edition. Registration closes on October 31.

Seven projects, one jury at the end

Basta Cinéma accompanies project holders from the moment they conceive an idea and define a creative vision. It ends when they have built a professional presentation file, which is meant for an international jury made up of film industry professionals. The dispatch, which the Algerian site Ici l'info published under the signature of the state news agency Algeria Press Service (APS), adds that holders will get technical and professional support throughout their development. The stated aim is to let them refine their ideas, consolidate their artistic vision and prepare presentations that meet what the film industry expects.

The first edition concerns seven Algerian projects across three forms: fiction, documentary and animation. According to the dispatch, the programme wants to give Algerian talents a professional setting in which to develop their work, and to strengthen their ability to present and defend it before people who work in the sector.

The dispatch names no jury member, no budget and no prize.

Registration runs until October 31 and seven projects will be retained, but the announcement does not say how the seven will be picked from the applicants, whether entry costs anything, or what happens to a project once the jury has heard it. Those are the questions a filmmaker deciding whether to apply would ask first. The Egyptian daily Youm7, which reported the launch on October 11, 2026, headlined it as a first for the festival, and added no detail on selection either.

The festival behind it

The festival's own call for entries, which the Tunisian site Kapitalis and the Algerian daily El Khabar both reported, schedules the 14th edition to end on December 24, 2026. It puts the opening one day before Basta Cinéma's window, which starts on December 19.

That call opened three official competitions for Arab films: feature fiction, short fiction and documentary. Filmmakers could register through the festival's website or by email until Wednesday, September 30, 2026. Basta Cinéma has its own, later deadline of October 31, and it is aimed at Algerian projects rather than finished films. Kapitalis, citing the organisers, says the festival was created by a ministerial decree dated July 4, 2007, as an international cinema and cultural event meant to strengthen the standing of Arab cinema. It describes a space for dialogue, exchange and cooperation among creators and professionals.

An earlier statement from the festival's management, quoted by the same site, says the event wants to be more than a date for screenings. The statement lists four roles: a meeting platform, a place to exchange experience, a laboratory for developing projects and a bridge between Arab filmmakers. Basta Cinéma is the first time, in the sources available, that the laboratory role gets a named programme.

Youm7 describes the festival as one of the main film events in Algeria, with screenings, official competitions, seminars and workshops, and tributes to artists, all meant to exchange experience and show the range of Arab film work. Work on projects that do not yet exist as films is not on that list, and the commissariat has now added it, for Algerian filmmakers alone.

What the 2025 edition left behind

The 13th edition ran from October 30 to November 5, 2025, with screenings in three Oran venues: the Maghreb, the Cinémathèque and the Saada hall. Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha presided over the feature jury. According to French Wikipedia's page on the edition, 34 films were in competition, among them 14 short films and 10 documentaries.

The edition was organised by the Algerian ministry of culture and arts and the wilaya (province) of Oran. Outside the competitions, the programme was split into sections named Cinéma de novembre, Palestine pour toujours, Environnement, Tapis rouge, Oran au cœur de l'Afrique and Moment en famille. The poster, by the artist and designer Shawki Boukaf, used red lines to link the eye, the hand and the city.

The Golden Wihr, the festival's top award, went to Hymnes d'Adam by the Iraqi director Oday Rashid. The Silver Wihr went to La Colonie by the Egyptian director Mohamed Rashad, and the Bronze Wihr to Samia by Yasmin Shama Dirie, from Somalia.

The same page states that Algerian films won no prize in any of the competitions. It cites the results published by the Algerian site DZDIA on November 7, 2025. Wikipedia is edited by volunteers, and no festival document we could open repeats the claim. No organiser or official links Basta Cinéma to that result.

The ceremonies carried their own weight.

The opening honoured Ghassan Massoud, Nadia Al Gindi and the director Rachid Bouchareb, and the closing paid tribute to the Algerian actor Sid Ahmed Agoumi, to the Egyptian actor Yasser Galal, to the Jordanian actor Munther Rayahneh and to the Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife. The singer Cheb Mami performed two songs that evening.

Training was already part of the 2025 edition.

The same page lists workshops with the Al Jazeera Media Institute on screenwriting, documentary directing and smartphone photography, meant to train the next generation of filmmakers, and masterclasses at the Regional Theatre by the actor Ghassan Massoud and the Algerian director Merzak Allouache.

Those sessions taught skills to whoever attended, and the juries of 2025 judged finished films. Between the two sits the stage where a film is still a file, and Basta Cinéma is the first programme of the festival, as far as the sources show, to work there: it follows individual projects through to a presentation in front of a jury.

The 2025 juries also show where Algerian professionals already sit at the table. The feature jury included the director Lotfi Bouchouchi and the actor and stage director Abbas Zahmani, the short film jury the set designer Hamza Djaballah, and the documentary jury the director Karim Sayad. All four are listed as Algerian.

Two other Algerian labs this autumn

Basta Cinéma arrives in a crowded calendar.

In Timimoun, the second Timimoun International Short Film Festival runs from November 5 to 10, 2026. Its first Gourara Lab, formally the Anis Djaâd Creative Lab, received 48 project applications and selected six fiction shorts, Indie Shorts Mag reported in September.

The selected projects go through writing and development stages, a second writing phase, and then a pitch in Timimoun to industry professionals. One of them will receive the Anis Djaâd development award, which includes financial support and mentoring. The festival has not published the amount. The lab is named after the Algerian filmmaker and screenwriter Anis Djaâd, and its selection committee includes the producer Amina Salem Castaing of Alpha Tango.

A third programme is aimed at feature films. An international workshop called Thinking Like a Buyer will take place in Algiers from December 6 to 10, 2026, led by Paul Federbush, a US film industry professional and financing expert. Applications opened on October 6 and close on November 10. Participation is free, sessions are mainly in English with interpreters, and the workshop is open to Algerian cinema professionals, particularly director or screenwriter and producer teams with a feature project.

The workshop's page says it wants filmmakers to see their projects through the eyes of the people who finance, co-produce and distribute films worldwide. The page we saved does not name the organiser.

Placed side by side, the three programmes share a structure. Each one picks a small group, works on the project before the film exists, and ends in front of people who decide what gets financed or shown. Six of 48 applicants at Timimoun gives a sense of how narrow that door can be.

No application figure has been published for Basta Cinéma, and the commissariat has not said whether the seven places are a ceiling or a target. Registration closes on October 31 and the programme opens on December 19, which leaves November and early December for any selection, and the announcement is silent on how that time will be used.

The dates to follow

For readers in the United States and the United Kingdom, the programmes are open to Algerian projects and professionals only, so what will be visible from outside is the end of the process: the pitches, the jury and the awards.

Registration for Basta Cinéma closes on October 31, 2026. The Timimoun festival and its lab presentations run from November 5 to 10, and applications for the Algiers workshop close on November 10. The workshop itself runs from December 6 to 10. The Oran festival closes on December 24, and Basta Cinéma, in the dispatch's words, runs from December 19 to 24 in Oran.

Sources

• Festival international du film arabe (Oran-2026) : lancement du programme «Basta Cinéma», Ouest Tribune, October 12, 2026