Netflix and Afac award 246 grants to TV and film professionals in Lebanon

Fund aims to support below-the-line crew and freelancers

Still from 'Panoptic', a film by Rana Eid. Afac

The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and streaming giant Netflix say 246 grants have been awarded to people in the film and television industry in Lebanon as part of the Afac-Netflix Hardship Fund.

The fund, which was announced as a collaboration between the organisations in October, offers financial support of individual $2,000 grants to primarily below-the-line crew and freelancers who have been struggling financially.

This comes at a particularly hard time for Lebanon, which has witnessed political instability and has been experiencing one of the worst economic crises of its history.

The situation has been compounded by the global coronavirus pandemic and the Beirut port explosion on August 4.

A total of 390 submissions were received in November from Lebanon-based people from seven countries across the region, 58 per cent of whom were aged 25 to 35, and 97 per cent being freelancers in the field, Afac said.

Amounting to $500,000, the fund's choice of grantees was made by an independent jury composed of director Amin Dora, TV producer May Abi Raad and film producer Sabine Sidawi Hamdan.

The Afac-Netflix partnership falls under the umbrella of the $100 million hardship fund which Netflix announced in March, to support creative communities around the world who have been affected by the pandemic, and which has since increased to $150 million.