The third instalment of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF) promises to be the most exciting year yet. Forty-three films will be showing in venues across the city, including the spectacular Katara, Doha’s cultural village, which hosted the festival for the first time last year. The hotly-contested Arab Film Competition has expanded to 14 films, and scores of Middle Eastern premieres plus a few world premieres means that the festival will truly make its mark on the international film scene.

As in previous years, there’ll be a celebrity crowd in attendance from the regional and international film worlds (we’re expecting Tribeca founder Robert De Niro, as well as stars from the likes of Black Gold, which is celebrating its world premiere at DTFF).

But it’s not just about movies and celeb-spotting, you know. The Doha Film Institute has organised a programme of workshops, family activities and more to further inspire the inner movie buff in us all.
To help you navigate, we’ve trawled the trailers to bring you our top must-see movies this year. Follow our handy colour-coding to pick your genre. Sit back, turn off your mobile, and get ready to watch!
Doha Tribeca Film Festival takes place from October 25-29. For a complete list, with times and venues, see www.dohafilminstitute.com/filmfestival. Tickets on sale from Oct 12.

Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland
Dir: Yasemin Samdereli
Language: German, Turkish
Yasemin Samdereli’s cinematic debut sees her following a family on a journey across Europe to find their homeland. Almanya tells the story of the Turkish Gastarbeiter family who have been living in Germany for three generations. As they travel towards their anscestral homeland, their journey has some suprising twists and turns.

A Man of Honour
Dir: Jean-Claude Codsi
Language: Arabic, English
Making its world premiere, this is one of the films co-produced by the Doha Film Institute. It follows the story of Brahim, who has a chance encounter with a mysterious woman he knew 20 years ago. Because of her, he committed a murder. Now he has to return home and face his tumultuous past. Taking place in Lebanon and Jordan, Man of Honour is about passion, betrayal and the many facets of human nature.

Black Gold
Dir: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Language: English
The much-anticipated world premiere of the first major motion picture shot in Qatar opens the festival this year. Set in the 1930s at the dawn of the oil boom, the story centres on a young Arab prince torn between allegiance to his conservative father and modern, liberal father-in-law. The film is an epic adventure adaptation of Hans Reusch’s classic novel The Great Thirst. The film’s prominent battle scenes were shot in Qatar’s spectacular desert dunes of Mesaieed and Shamal over a four-week period.

Boxing With Her
Dir: Latifa Robbana Doghri
Language: Arabic
Making its international debut, Boxing With Her dives into the world of female boxers trying to break into Tunisia’s all-male pugilist world. Few women, in a culture where female bodies are seen as sacred, private, and something to be kept at home, take to the ring. The film follows four boxers as they prepare to not only fight, but fight to win medals, competitions, and even go to the Olympics.

Bullhead
Dir: Michael R Roskam
Language: Dutch, French
This mafia-action flick is heavy on the drama. Part Godfather-homage, part-Western, it delves deep into the crooked world of beef farming, growth hormones and underworld dealings. But under all the tough guy posing, there’s a deep thread of emotional catharsis for the main characters. And in spite of the subtitles, Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts stole our hearts.

Crayons of Askalan
Dir: Laila Hotait Salas
Language: Arabic
Zuhdi Al Adawi, a Palestinian artist imprisoned in the occupied territories, uses his art as his means of expression, helped by his family and the rest of the community. With sensitivity and insight, Spanish-Lebanese filmmaker Laila Hotait Salas explores themes of isolation and community, and exactly what they mean to artists and their craft.

Declaration of War
Dir: Valerie Donzelli
Language: French
Everything is going swimmingly for hipster couple Romeo and Juliette, until their infant son is diagnosed with a brain tumor. The film follows the family through trips to the hospital and their own spiralling sense of dispair, desperation and disquiet at an unknown future. Filmed on a tiny budget, many of the sets and background characters (such as the hospital staff), are real, playing themselves – this is most apparent in the cannot-be-faked realism of the sickly yellow glow of the hospital lights. Heartbreakingly authentic.

Haneen
Dir: Ossama Bawardi
Language: Arabic
This short film, making its world premiere at DTFF, is the creation of Palestinian film-maker Ossama Bawardi. From his unique perspective, it tells a story about nostalgia, loneliness and the absence of love. The story follows Haneen, an old woman surviving within memories of her home, struggling between the slow monotony of the everyday and her passion to rediscover her zest for life.

How Big is Your Love
Dir: Fatma Zohra Zamoum
Language: Arabic
A story about childhood and love, set in modern Algiers. Eight-year-old Adel is taken in by his grandparents to escape his parents’ fighting. He’s meant to stay for only one week, but as another week passes and he starts to miss school, he quickly feels he has lived there forever. It’s a film about family, and about answering how much love is required to get through a difficult period.

Lust (Shooq)
Dir: Khaled El Hagar
Language: Arabic
Multi award-winning Egyptian film director Khaled El Hagar takes a look into the lives of people living on one marginalised street in Alexandria. Filmed before the Arab Spring, it hit number two at the Egyptian box office just weeks before the revolution began, with critics claiming the film predicted the upheaval ahead, as well as being an accurate portrayal of how the poor lived in Alexandria before the government was overthrown. Taking centre stage amongst the funny, moving and ultimately familiar characters in the movie is Umm Shooq, a woman driven by her own sense of inadequacy and shame.