The Founder and Chair of the Beirut Film Society, Sam Lahoud has been selected to nominate the best short films from the following Middle Eastern and Gulf countries for this year’s HFPA Snow Leopard Short Films Award in Hollywood: Armenia, Bahrain, Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The ceremony will take place at the Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles in November, as part of an agreement between the festival and the Golden Globes. Awards consist of $5,000 US for the best short film from Asia, as well as an invitation to the Golden Globes.
Lahoud's role is to select 12 short films from these countries which go toward the shortlisting of two films for the final qualifications.
ABOUT SAM LAHOUD
Sam Lahoud is a Director, Producer, Writer, and Lecturer in the Audiovisual Arts Department at Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU). He is the Founder and Director of the Beirut Film Society, the NDU International Short Film Festival, the Beirut International Women Film Festival, Beirut International Children and Family Film Festival, and the Lebanese Film Festival in Canada.
He is also planning to launch the Armenian Film Festival in Beirut soon; Lahoud also programs short films for the Rabat International Author Film Festival, and he supervises the restoration program of the Lebanese cinema archive, conducted by Notre Dame University and the Lebanese Ministry of Culture, in addition to the project "Girls for Change" organized with the support of UNICEF.
In addition to his participation as juror and his contribution in programming Lebanese films in a number of regional and international film festivals, he has been featured for two consecutive years (2018 and 2019) on the list of the 100 most influential cinematic figures in the Arab world in Arab Cinema Center magazine.