James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli was one of the guests at a gala dinner hosted by the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and the Media City Qatar (MCQ) on the fringes of the Venice Film Festival on Monday evening.
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The veteran producer’s presence added fuel to recent reports that she is attempting to secure Qatari finance for ex-James Bond actor Daniel Craig’s big screen passion project Othello, with well-placed sources hinting on Monday night that talks were ongoing.
Broccoli — who is co-head of James Bond producer Eon Productions with Michael G. Wilson — has reportedly been working with Craig for some time on the project, billed as a modern adaptation of the Shakespearean classic set in American army barracks in Iraq.
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It has been suggested that the sweetener for the investment would be James Bond touching down in Doha, which would be a boost for Qatar’s plans to become a key film player in the region.
The Doha Film Institute (DFI) mainly focuses on the nurturing and financing of independent cinema from the Arab world but has occasionally co-financed larger international projects such as Loving Vincent, The Prophet, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Capernaum and It Must Be Heaven.
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James Bond has not traveled to the Middle East since visiting Egypt for The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977, having previously visited Beirut in The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974. He has never been to the Gulf.
The Middle East chatter comes amid ongoing speculation over who will next play James Bond following the departure of Daniel Craig, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson the most recent name in the hat, while there has been no update on plans for the next movie in the franchise
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Deadline has contacted EON Productions for confirmation on the Qatari deal rumors.
Broccoli was among some 150 guests at the gala dinner at the Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti in Venice, alongside Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, CAA agent Maha Dakhil and top lawyer and former 2022 Qatar World Cup chief Hassan Al-Thawadi as well as a host of Arab world cinema professionals.
The dinner also hosted the films teams for DFI-backed Venice titles including Tunisian director Mehdi Barsaoui’s Aïcha and Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays in the festival’s Horizons line-up, and Sudan, Remember Us by Hind Meddeb in Giornate degli Autori.
The Palazzo Franchetti is also hosting Qatar’s ‘Your Ghosts Are Mine – Expanded Cinemas, Amplified’ exhibition, exploring themes of memory and identity through over 40 films and installations by creatives from across the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia.