Arab filmmakers occupy the front of the stage at the Amman 2025 film festival

Amman – The Amman International Film Festival (AIFF) has never hunted Glitz. There has not been a red carpet for two years, in solidarity with Gaza. Nor any race for the first. Instead, what happened in Jordan’s capital this year was something more resonant: a cinematographic call for action. Documentaries from the war zone at the web series defying genres and changes in energy policy, here are five key points of variety coverage on the ground in Amman.

Jordan is not only open for business … It builds an industry

With a revival of 45% – plus complete tax exemptions – Jordan has officially become much more attractive as filming destinations. “We have studied all the rival territories, from Abu Dhabi to Australia,” said the director general of the Royal Film Commission Mohannad al-Bakri. “Between the discount, zero taxes and crews which can enter directly on a Marvel set, Jordan is now the most profitable option in the region.” The land goes beyond the figures. Prince Ali Bin Hussein, who chairs the Board of Directors of the RFC, underlined a broader vision: “What we want is to use this experience to continue to build our own industry, whether it is a question of reaching the Oscars with our own films or creating a space where people have the freedom to tell their stories.”

With quick permits, qualified local crews and cinematographic landscapes of Wadi Rum in Petra on the animated streets of Amman, Jordan makes a clear game: not only to host global productions, but to anchor it.

Arab creators do not wait for permission

In all places, Aiff’s pitching platforms to its Spark series, a clear message appeared: Arab filmmakers move with or sometimes without institutional guards. They do not only tell urgent stories of war, exile and inherited trauma, they do it through daring forms and defying genres: magical realism, hybrid formats and shameless personal stories.

For pitching platforms, member of the jury and criticism of Fipresci Eduardo Guillot, this creative risk creation sends a message to the global film industry: “It is necessary to tell stories from a perspective that many international festivals ignore or consider exotic, but without which contemporary cinema cannot afford to go ahead.”

The Lebanese director, Maria Ghafary (“Bodies on the Margins”), who participated in the Spark workshops, a kind platform for web series in Western Asia, said more without worry: “I did not wait for approval. I just created. “

This energy has fueled dozens of projects, including the gender thriller of the Moroccan filmmaker Ali Benchekroune “Testosterone”. “We want to go beyond stereotypes,” he said. “And offer raw, complex and impactful stories.”

As an Irish filmmaker nominated from the Oscars, Jim Sheridan (“In the name of the father”, “My Left Foot”) noted during his masterclass Aiff: “They push with or without funding. Talent is there. What they need now is barriers. ”

Gaza is a life story, not just loss

One of the most burning and intimate windows of the festival came from Ground Zero +, a list of five short films made inside Gaza by Palestinian filmmakers during the current war. They were not foreign accounts. Instead, they were created by artists living the reality they represent, offering a rare cinematic window on siege life.

“These are not films on Gaza,” said Nada Doumani, festival director. “They are made by people who live it. They don’t look from the outside. “

Oscar, preselected for the International Prize for the International Function of the 2025, feature films include “Tel-Small Dreams”, who follows a young woman who sails access to health care, and “Le Clown de Gaza”, on a street artist who raises minds in displaced communities, has pushed the trophies of the victim. They portrayed resilience, humor and moments of daily beauty.

“Even under siege, there is beauty. There is creativity. Gaza is not only rubble. It is poetry, it is cinema,” said that veteran filmmaker Palestine Rashid Mashawari, who coordinates the initiative.

By supporting Ground Zero +, the festival has not only highlighted suffering, they rather defended narration as a form of resistance, memory and survival.

Web series are the next film border in the Arab world

For years, the abbreviated series have been rejected as “online content”. No more. During the very first Spark d’Aiff series, organized by the Lebanese filmmaker and intuitive artist Muriel Aboulouss, the web creators were treated as equals and the results were electrical.

“This format gives artists freedom,” said Aboulrouss. “They don’t need a distributor or a diffuser. They can finance, turn and publish their stories themselves. ”

The series “Unfradramed”, “Taste of Arrival” and “Bodies on the Margins” challenged conventional financing models and festival formats. For Aboulrouss, the movement barely begins: “He was born in Amman, but he should travel. It is time for the web series were treated not as less works, but as vital stories told in our own terms.”

Amman bets on people, not the prestige

There is no scrambling for guests on list A. No red carpet in sight. And it’s by design. “The region is bleeding,” said Doumani. “Our stories count. Sometimes the message has priority on the technique. “

It is a festival that considers cinema not as a luxury but as a lifeline. A place where new voices, like the director “The Masters of Magic and Beauty” Jad Chahine, can reinvent the genre, the line and the rebellion in mythical terms. “It’s not a question of shock,” he said. “It is a question of exposing the fragility of the systems to which we have learned to trust.”

This philosophy extends to the next generation. AIA workshops, led by Finnish producer Aleksi Hyvärinen, have explored creative ethics in technology without beaten or panic. “AI is only another tool,” said Jordanian filmmaker Anwaar Al-Shawabkeh. “We have to explore its strengths and limits.”

And everything comes back in Jordan. As Prince Ali Bin Hussein said Variety: “In Jordan, filmmakers are free to tell the stories they want. We do not read the scripts, for example. It is therefore an experience. Come here, take advantage of it and create.