Crowdfunding for the Oscars

Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel is hoping to follow in Omar and The Square‘s footsteps next year and land a coveted Academy Award nod for his documentary A World Not Ours. But first, he needs $30,000.

“We never gave the prospect any thought until people started telling us we had a good chance, given the film’s success, and that we should give it a shot. We were also encouraged by the Arab film nominations in this year’s Oscars race,” Fleifel explained.

The UAE-born director has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Aflamnah to try and raise the necessary funds, which will be used to check off all the requirements needed to make the documentary eligible for the golden statue.

This includes a seven-day commercial screening in Los Angeles County, California and advertising in a major U.S. newspaper, as well as a lobbying and PR campaign to generate the kind of buzz an Oscar film needs.

“Ask any filmmaker what they wish or look forward to the most, and they’ll likely say screening their film in front of a big audience, so for us the Oscars ultimately means winning more viewers,” Fleifel said.

A World Not Ours is a first-person account of life in the Ain-el-helweh refugee camp in Lebanon, told through the trials and triumphs of Fleifel’s friends and family.

And it’s already won praise and accolades across the film community, taking home Best Documentary at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, among others, and lauded by Variety as a “passionate, ironic, bittersweet… docu that flips storytelling and Mideast-Arab cliches on their heads while weaving an irresistible mood of amused melancholy.”

Check out the trailer, below:

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