"Seen from the perspective of film directors in the Middle East, the NFSD‘s Middle East Project makes a clear contribution in a number of areas: focusing on documentary flimmaking, it provides opportunities for flimmakers from the region to engage with realities that are important to them, but perhaps difficult to expiore without the framework that a training program provides; it introduces flimmakers to a kind of film pedagogy that is seen as deviating from what tends to be on offer in the region‘s established institutions, a pedagogy that is liberating, engaging, and enabling; finaily, it fosters networks, and aithough some of the ties in question may be weak, they are perceived as a potential basis for further. worthwhile filmmaking activities, and thus as enabling. In some cases, student filmmakers from the Middle East have become central to the NFSD‘s project and key figures within the network. This is clearly the case, for example, for Corine Shawi. The art-based network(s) that the project helps to create may be its most important contribution. Hala Galal, from partner NGO Semat in Cairo, speaks of the “regression and increasing intimidation“ that she encounters in her “daily work as a female filmmaker“ in Egypt. And she goes on to underscore the importance of the kind of support that a network of friends and fellow travelers can provide: “Th are people in other nations who can appreciate my work, despite the differences in ethnicity, religion, and language. This. . . has strengthened my conviction that we, as human beings the world over, can stand united against injustice and intolerance in all its forms.“ Film training, in this way of thinking, extends well beyond mere technical skills and into the domain of “world making.“ Admirably, those working with this kind of model are not afraid to recognize and, indeed, embrace the responsibilities that this entails." (Conclusion, page 147)