Qatari film And Then They Burn The Sea by Majid Al Remaihi has qualified for the Academy Awards under Documentary Short Subject.
The Doha Film Institute (DFI) said Al Remaihi is the country’s first-ever filmmaker to qualify for the Oscars.
The institute which funded the film termed the latest accolade of the filmmaker as “a wonderful milestone for Qatari cinema”.
“We congratulate Majid and his entire crew for what is certainly an inspiring success story particularly for aspiring local storytellers hoping to reach a wider, international audience,” said DFI on its official social media pages.
Filmmaker Al Remaihi said: “This submission for the Academy Awards is a milestone for myself and the many hands that went into making And Then They Burn The Sea.”
He added: “Seven years ago, I began to feel an endless sea driving a wedge between myself and my mother as her struggle with Alzheimer’s continued to chip away at her sense of being. At nineteen, there was no specific way for me to reconcile with this continuous and incremental loss, of what it had robbed, and what it continues to rob of the futures and pasts that are suddenly irretrievable. But cinema, and this film, helped me piece together abstractions and unfinished conversations as a result of my need for gestures to mourn and heal.”
In an earlier interview, Al Remaihi said his film is “a homage to my mother’s memories, cinema, and the processing of that kind of abnormal loss, when the loved one hasn’t passed away, but their memories and sense of familiarity have”.
The 13-minute short film And Then They Burn The Sea has been making its global streak of acclaim for the past years, the latest of which is when it bagged the main prize in the Fiction and Documentary International Competition at Vienna Shorts Film Festival.
The 95th Oscars will be held on March 12, 2023.
