If you missed it at film festivals in Tribeca, or Toronto, or Sundance–you can catch it in DOHA! The tiny but super-wealthy Middle Eastern emirate of QATAR- of which DOHA is the capital- is importing western-and world culture– like it’s going out of style. Several US colleges and universities now have campuses in DOHA, among them: Northwestern, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, and Cornell Medical College. Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ former head of Marketing and Communications– Kim French–is currently Deputy Director of External Affairs at the National Museum of Qatar!

And now Qatar is importing whole film festivals!  From November 17-24 The Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF) will showcase 21 films in the Contemporary World Cinema section and 12 Special Screenings this year. Here’s the whole story from  7DAYS in…Dubai.com:

“Doha Tribeca Film Festival to showcase 39 films from 30 countries — 87 Films and 176 screenings in all!

The fourth edition of the festival is being held from November 17 – 24. With representation from 30 countries, the Contemporary World Cinema and Special Screenings programme will feature 29 MENA (Middle East and North Africa) premieres. The films have been drawn from across the world with representation from both established markets such as France, Germany, India, Iran, United Kingdom, China and the USA and festival debutants, including Kazakhstan, Senegal, Ethiopia and Iceland.

Issa bin Mohammed Al Mohannadi, DTFF Vice Chair, said: “The selection of films from around the world this year underlines our commitment to bringing the best of local, regional, and international cinema for our community.

“Through this powerful showcase, audiences can access some of the most sought-after movies in one destination. The films will also appeal to the multicultural population of Doha, further reiterating our mandate to create a truly community-centred festival.”

The following is a scene from a documentary made in Qatar called BADER:

Under the Special Screenings programme, DTFF will show Toronto International Film Festival’s 2012 Audience Award winner, David O Russell’s ‘Silver Lining Playbook’ (USA) featuring Robert De Niro.

Ben Affleck’s ARGO is set to show along with Martin McDonagh’s ‘Seven Psychopaths’ (USA)and other great titles including the late Yash Chopra`s parting gift to lovers of Bollywood cinema ‘Till I Breath This Life’ (India). The week-long Festival comes to a close with the screening of Peter Ramsey’s ‘Rise of the Guardians 3D’, an animated fantasy adventure based on William Joyce’s The Guardians of Childhood book series.

DTFF 2012 will also host complimentary beach screenings for the local community including the first title selected by Martin Scorsese for restoration by the World Cinema Foundation, Ahmed El Maanouni’s ‘Trances’, in addition to ‘The Brave Hearted Will Take the Bride’ by Aditya Chopra, Guiseppe Tornatore’s ‘Cinema Paradiso’, Steven Spielberg’s ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ and Majid Majidi’s ‘Children of Heaven’ (Iran).

Six of the selected Contemporary World Cinema titles are official country selections for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2013 including ‘Children of Sarajevo’ (Bosnia and Herzegovina), ‘Just the Wind’ (Hungary), ‘Kon-Tiki’ (Norway), ‘The Deep’ (Iceland), ‘Myn Bala – Warriors of the Steppe’ (Kazakhstan) and ‘White Tiger’ (Russia). The section also includes works by acknowledged filmmakers such as Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘The Hunt’, Ken Loach’s ‘The Angels’ Share’. Matteo Garrone’s ‘Reality’, and Markus Imhoof’s ‘More Than Honey’.

The Contemporary World Cinema line-up includes Malik Bendjelloul’s ‘Searching for Sugar Man’, winner of ‘The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary’ at this year’s Sundance Film Festival; Umut Dağ’s ‘Kuma’ which opened the Berlinale’s Panorama section this year; ‘Valentino’s Ghost’ by Michael Singh, which premiered at the 2012 Venice International Film Festival; Dominga Sotomayor’s ‘Thursday Till Sunday’, winner of the ‘Tiger Award’ at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and ‘Everybody in our Family’ by Radu Jude; Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg’s ‘Kon-Tiki’ .

Rounding out celebrations of the 40th year of diplomatic relations between Qatar and Japan, DTFF 2012 will present ‘Japanese Snapshots’, a curated programme including ‘Trace’ by Naomi Kawase and Lucy Walker’s ‘The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom’; in addition to a year-round Museum of Islamic Arts Programming handover between Japan and UK.

DTFF 2012 will showcase over 87 films from across the globe under distinct themed sections including Arab Film Competition, Made in Qatar, Contemporary World Cinema, Special Screenings and Tribute to Algerian Cinema.