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Netflix To Give 5 Arab Female Filmmakers A $250,000 Grant

This is AFAC’s second collaboration with Netflix, and it aligns perfectly with its mission to promote diversity of voices and narratives.

Published

4 years ago

April 23, 2022

David Morelo

In 2021, Netflix set up its Fund for Creative Equity to create more opportunities for people from underrepresented communities. Now, the subscription streaming service and production company is partnering with the Lebanon-based Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) to offer a $250,000 grant to 5 Arab female filmmakers.

“The Fund for Creative Equity helps the industry as a whole to have a much more dynamic, interesting, multidimensional representation of women, and this is one step in the journey to enabling more women to tell their stories and have new audiences discover their work”, said Nuha El Tayeb, Director Content Acquisitions, Middle East, and Turkey at Netflix.

Also Read: Disney+ Confirms Its Middle East Launch Date

The one-off grant will go to five projects across the MENA region:

The Mother Of All Lies by Asmae El Moudir (Morocco): A documentary focusing on the 1981 Bread Riots in Morocco and its impact on the director’s family and contemporary society.
My Name Is Clara by Sarra Abidi (Tunisia): A story of a call center operator named Ayda, who is living an ordinary and repetitive life.
Manity by Tania El Khoury (Lebanon): An examination of the relationship between an 11-year-old son and his father as they go bird hunting.
The Day Vladimir Died by Jana Wehbe (Lebanon): A story of an old man who spends his time checking the obituaries page and attending funerals.
From The Other Shore by Diala Kachmar (Lebanon): A movie about two handicapped friends who navigate life together.

This is AFAC’s second collaboration with Netflix, and it aligns perfectly with its mission to promote diversity of voices and narratives. “More and more Arab female filmmakers are creating moving images that have the power to shed light on the realities of the region,” said Rima Mismar, AFAC’s current Executive Director.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.