World Cinema Fund at Berlinale, interview with Kesmat Eisayed, Egyptian producer

World Cinema Fund is a special programme linked to the European Film Market and to the Berlinale with the  goal to promote high-quality filmmaking in regions with a weak infrastructure for film, while fostering cultural diversity in German cinemas as well as supporting collaboration between German and European producers and partners in WCF regions and countries. In the days of activity of the Fund in Berlin, we met with Kesmat El Sayed, an Egyptian producer that was one of the speakers in a panel on Arab Cinema. Europe is interested in Arab cinema but the issue is the spending on site Kesmat El Sayed explains where lies the biggest obstacle in helping and promote filmmaking in the regions interested by the WCF: where the money is spent.  Most of the funding coming from the Western world to help the producers that are the target of these actions are to be spent in the west and not on location, with makes the actual help much more complex, as there must be a non-local co-producer that needs to find a way to get those grants and use them.