Naomi Kawase Will Lead the Jury at the Doha Film Festival
Film-maker Naomi Kawase will head the jury for the main international competition at the second Doha Film Festival in November, Deadline reported on 26 October 2026.
Kawase will be joined by four fellow jurors: actor Adam Bessa, producer and festival figure Dora Bouchoucha, documentary maker Gianfranco Rosi and film-maker Kamal Aljafari. Together they will choose the winners from a lineup of 15 international features.
That lineup was announced earlier this month. The festival said the 15 films come from four continents, and it described the selection as its 2026 international feature competition. The Doha Film Festival also set out the prizes. The Best Narrative Award carries US$75,000, and the Best Documentary Award carries US$50,000.
The festival is run by the Doha Film Institute, the film body based in Qatar. Fatma Hassan Alremaihi is the institute's chief executive and the festival's director.
For a general reader, a film festival jury works a bit like a panel of judges at a sports tournament. Its members watch every competing film and then pick the prize winners. Festival juries are often made up of working film-makers, actors and programmers, so the choice of people is itself news. Kawase, Rosi and Aljafari each make films that have travelled to festivals around the world, and Bessa and Bouchoucha bring acting and industry experience to the panel.
Festivals like this one also work as meeting points. Sales agents, who sell films to cinemas and streaming services in different countries, and buyers often attend to see which films will find an audience next. A prize can help a film win a wider release.
The competition runs in November. The festival has not yet named a date for the winners' announcement, so readers should watch the festival's own channels for the schedule.
