the Qatari film industry, though that may be set to change since the founding of the Doha Film Institute in 2010, which aims to bring together all of the country's film making initiatives and projects. Qatar also hosted an annual Doha Tribeca Film Festival launched in 2009 but was discontinued in 2012. Doha Film Institute was created by Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani's initiative in 2010 to primarily foster a film culture and industry for Qatar's 2030 vision of a knowledge based economy but also to alternatively enhance the region's film industry. It does so primarily through grants, workshops, labs and development activities which aims at the local Qatari talent's development but is also open to regional MENA talent. For its first initiatives, Doha Film Institute partnered with the Tribeca Enterprise to launch the Doha Tribeca Film Festival which aimed to foster a grass root film industry but was ended after four years to make way to other initiatives such as the annual Qumra (five editions) and the Ajyal Film Festival (seven editions). The Doha Film Institute's new trajectory with its new initiatives is to focus its efforts fostering interest from an early in the local community, thus the children based judging for the Ajyal Film Festival. It is also to strengthen the making and appeal of its annually granted projects through the Qumra projects. Qatar's current exhibition and distribution scheme is encouraged by a high demand of film viewing in theaters in addition to widespread online viewing, with the latter encourage theatrical visits from entertainment seekers in Qatar In 2017 only, there was a surge of 50 cinemas across Qatar in only 6 months as there was a rise of 35% in moviegoers across the nation. The exhibition landscape is competitively shared between worldwide exhibitors such as Novo, Vox and Gulf Media but also locally based theaters such as Landmark and Doha cinema (Souq Waqif). Qatar's current contemporary cinema infrastructure includes its national film center charged of local and regional development of the film scene along with a competitive distribution and growing theatrical distribution landscape. Qatar does not have many feature films made by local talent, on the other hand, Qatari film companies have funded many films which won prestigious awards. The following is a list of notable films financed by Qatar. Notable directors and films (funded) Saudi Arabia History Initially, Saudi Arabia did not refute the