Come October 10 and you will find Shabana Azmi at the United Arab Emirates presiding over the distinguished jury for the 6th Abu Dhabi International Film Festival. A visually elated Shabana confirmed that she has accepted to be the President of the jury at the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival. She also added that she has been the President earlier at the Montreal World Film Festival, the Cairo Film Festival, the APSA Asia Pacific Screen Academy and Mannheim Film Festivals. With this, Shabana will become the first lady to head the jury for the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival that aims to showcase films by Arab filmmakers alongside world cinema.

Shabana will be joined by the likes of Niki Karimi (Iranian actress-director-screenwriter, also a jury member for festivals like Cannes, Berlin and Locarno), Ismael Ferroukhi (French filmmaker who has won many awards at Cannes and Venice), Cedomir Kolar (Czech producer), and Miguel Littin (Chilean director-producer-screenwriter-novelist). On the Indian front, there are speculations that the Malayalam superstar Mammootty may just attend the event. While Richard Gere will be walking the red carpet as the chief guest, his latest film Arbitrage will be screened on the opening night.