The Circuit

The press release for the Middle East International Film Festival competition doesn't boast any feature film premieres.  Instead they focused on films that won awards or coveted fest spots elsewhere, mentioning "La Zona's" FIPRESCI award, "Grace is Gone's" Sundance competition birth, "Lucky Mile's" Special Jury Prize at Karlovy Vary, and "I Love Hip Hop Morocco's" best doc prize at the 2007 Atlanta Hip Hop Festival. 

And it's wonderful to see "Persepolis" in competition for The Black Pearl trophy.  Perhaps the fest is choosing to let the size of this prize speak more than the size of its premiere slate. From Ali Jaafar's article:

Its international competition will honor first-time or sophomore filmmakers for best feature, docu and short.

More significantly, the awards will offer substantial prize money -- the sum to be determined by the budget of the winner's next project. "Whether the next project is $1 million or $10 million or more, we're committing to helping get the project made," says fest director Jon Fitzgerald. "It's going to be the biggest prize of its kind that I've ever seen."