Dubai has announced plans to set up the first Arab Film Institute (AFI), a non-profit cultural association dedicated to celebrating and promoting regional film. Designed to bring together the most promising and brightest of Arab filmmakers under one roof, the AFI will be a unique meeting point between the art, technique and commerce involved in a prosperous film industry through learning, advocacy and networking.

Celebrated Pakistani movies drew packed houses on Saturday, the first day of Pakistan Film Festival’s triumphant debut in New York City. [...] Earlier, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi declared open the two-day festival, saying it is a part of the continuing efforts to promote cultural diplomacy and to project the country’s soft power.

If six weeks in Paris during the European summer learning filmmaking from some of the greats of French cinema sounds like your kind of working holiday, you should probably keep your ear to the ground for the 2017 edition of the Femis Gulf Summer School. The programme – a partnership between The Embassy of France to the UAE and the Femis Film School in Paris – sends students from across the Gulf to Paris each summer for an intensive six-week course.