The Doha Tribeca Film Festival Hits the YouTube Screening Room

Today marks the first day of the inaugural Doha Tribeca Film Festival, a partnership between the Qatar Museums Authority and the Tribeca Film Festival, to celebrate the best of Arabic and international cinema through an annual film festival and year-round workshops in Doha, Qatar's capital. The festival hopes to inspire, engage and educate a new generation of cinema appreciation in the Middle East, much in the same way that the Tribeca Film Festival has stimulated the local film community in New York.

To celebrate the festival's launch, we've turned the YouTube Screening Room over to the expert curators at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, who have put together a lineup of five films (four shorts and one feature), selected to highlight diverse filmmaking voices with a strong Middle Eastern connection. Each of these films possesses the ability to entertain and to educate, and we hope that after watching you'll feel compelled to continue the conversation by commenting on, sharing and rating those that move you. Here's a sneak peek....

"Clear Cut, Simple," directed by Vineet Dewan, is based on a true story about an American soldier in Iraq, torn between his duty to the military and his friendship with his Iraqi interpreter. "Eclipse," directed by Mark Lapwood, is a meditative visual journey featuring stunning images of Mumbai. "Itmanna: Make A Wish," directed by Cherien Dabis, explores the tensions of a politically charged environment through the prism of a young girl's quest to buy a birthday cake. "The North Road," directed by Carlos Chahine, tracks a middle-aged man's return to his home country of Lebanon to deal with his father's remains. And "Ramchand Pakistani," a feature film directed by Mehreen Jabbar, is based on a true story about a Pakistani Hindu family's accidental crossing of the Pakistani-Indian border in 2002.