Dubai International Film Festival: Bringing Cultures Together

The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) was first launched back in 2004 and since then has gone on to become one of the most popular film festivals in the world. The original theme; Bridging Cultures, Meetings Minds, has been a concept that has been at the forefront of the festival's culture since the beginning and one that continues to draw people around the Middle East and beyond to enjoy the films on offer.

The vision of the film festival is to lead in building cultural understanding through creative achievement in film. This vision is something that has been attributed to the remarkable growth of the film festival both in terms of the number of films shown and the number of attendees.

From humble beginnings in 2004, the DIFF has seen its admissions more than double. In 2004 admissions were at just over 22,000 people, however, by 2008 they were close to 50,000.

Of course the success in the film industry is not only attributed to the number of spectators but also the number of industry registrants which has again more than doubled, from 750 in 2004 to more than 1800 industry members in 2008.

Alongside the plethora of film makers, script writers, actors and other industry officials, the Dubai International Film Festival also attracts attention from the press and news industry. In 2004, the number of journalists, reporters and other press registrants was a mere 450 however by 2008 this had almost tripled to a staggering 1165.

Of course for the Dubai International Film Festival, the success of the festival is not in its ability to attract industry officials or members of the press, although this is certainly a sign of its ongoing success. No, with a vision to bring cultures together under the umbrella of film, success for the Dubai International Film Festival lies in its ability to grow the number of international registrants.

In 2004, 27 countries were represented, however by 2008 this had grown to 66 a number that the DIFF is continuously trying to expand upon.

The success of the film festival has no doubt had a majorly positive impact on the already booming tourist industry. With nearly 50,000 film lovers in 2008 this helped to fill the restaurants and luxury Dubai spa hotels.

The sixth Dubai International Film Festival will run in December 2010.