Neon’s Tom Quinn, A24’s Daniel Katz & Barbara Broccoli Due In Qatar For Industry Days – Doha Film Festival
Neon CEO and founder Tom Quinn will be the opening speaker on Friday at a new industry event being hosted by the Qatar Film Committee in collaboration with the Doha Film Institute (DFI) as part of its new Doha Film Festival.
The new festival and industry event comes amid renewed international focus on the Gulf region following chatter earlier this week that Qatar and neighbors Saudi Arabia and emirate Abu Dhabi could be part of a $71 billion bid by Paramount for Warner Bros Discovery.
Created in 2022 and falling under the remit of Media City Qatar, the body charged with growing the Gulf state as a media and creative industries hub, the fledgeling film committee is headed by Hassan Al Thawadi, the Qatari lawyer who oversaw the organization of the Qatar World Cup.
After working under the radar until now, the body is expected to make a series of big announcements on funding initiatives and partnerships at the three-day Industry Days event.
Quinn and Al Thawadi will participate in its first session, which is billed as a fireside chat moderated by Faisal Al‑Agel, a Kuwaiti entrepreneur and Co-founder & CEO of Sard Group, one of the biggest media and communication companies in the region.
Friday’s program also features a panel on producing for a global audience with Jonathan Glickman. The former MGM Motion Picture Group President took up the baton in late 2024 from Bill Block as CEO of Miramax, which is jointly owned by Qatar’s beIN Media Group and Paramount Skydance.
Indian producer Siddharth Roy Kapur (Dangal, Chennai Express), Nigerian media mogul and EbonyLife CEO Mo Abudu and Crazy Rich Asians film producer John Penotti will discuss how stories, talent, and financing from the Global South are reshaping the global film ecosystem.
A final panel that day will see Department M Co-Founders, Mike Larocca and Michael Schaefer, and Brazilian producer and executive, Rodrigo Teixeira (I’m Still Here) explore how producers are adapting to an industry defined by streaming, shifting distribution, and new financing models.
Highlights over the weekend will include a closed session with A24 Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Katz in which he will share the the story of how the company grew from being a small independent distributor to becoming one of the most influential entertainment companies.
In another closed session, Barbara Broccoli, who has several projects on the boil in the wake of ceding the rights with her brother Michael G. Wilson to their family’s James Bond franchise to Amazon MGM Studios earlier this year, will join Oscar-nominated producer Nicky Bentham in a masterclass on creative producing in a changing landscape.
Further guest speakers include Shebnem Askin, Executive VP of Creative Production and Head of Sony Pictures International Productions, who will discuss how international IP can inspire and empower local storytelling, while Steven Paul, CEO of SP Media Group who will talk the “New Economics of Global Storytelling” with Hans Fraikin, the former Film & TV Commissioner at the Abu Dhabi Film Commission.
The new Industry Days are being launched in unison with the Doha Film Festival. The event, which is being spearheaded by the DFI, opened on Thursday with the MENA premiere of The Voice Of Hind Rajab.
Both events are part of Qatar’s larger strategy to take the country’s film and TV activities to the next level as sees to diversify its economy beyond the oil and natural gas on which its wealth is built.
