By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter


A young Qatari lady has made a short film in a bid to inspire and raise awareness on how to lessen and gradually stop fatal accidents on Qatar’s roads.
Seventeen-year-old Sana al-Ansari, a high school student at Raba’a Adawiya Girls’ Independent School, said many young Qatari youths died last year due to accidents caused by speeding. This January recorded 31 deaths due to road traffic accidents in Qatar, making it the deadliest month since official figures had been made available.
She said fatal road accidents affected the Qatari society by depriving the nation of precious young lives who would otherwise have contributed to building a healthy local community.  
Al-Ansari noted that these kinds of incidents saddened the victims’ parents, siblings, friends and their other acquaintances.
Her short film, titled If They Only Knew, has made it to the Thimun Qatar Northwestern Film Festival, which will be held from April 2 to 4. It has been nominated for three awards: Best National Film, Best Editing and Best Sound.  
She said several films have highlighted the “boy drives the car - boy speeds - boy dies” line. Her film, though, focuses on how such accidents affect “the ones left behind”.
“I am so happy to be nominated and achieve such a feat since my efforts to help and highlight this national problem is recognised,” she said.
Her mother, Nada, told Gulf Times that Doha Film Institute (DFI) had worked “effortlessly and diligently step-by-step with her daughter to develop the script, shoot the film and edit it”.  
“They also encouraged her to enter it for youth film festivals. She is very thankful to them,” Nada said.
She also urged youths who are interested in filmmaking to contact DFI, which helps aspiring filmmakers develop their skills and talents.
The Qatari student lauded DFI, saying it is “a great group of people to work with and I couldn’t have done it without them”.
Al-Ansari was recently invited to debut her film at Reach Out to Asia (Rota)’s Empower Conference.
More than 500 young participants at the Rota event watched the film, which encouraged the youth to drive within limits and make it to their family safely.
She will be going to Washington, DC in the US in early April to take part in a conference as part of Qatar Foundation’s international programme to encourage youth to “change the world”.
The short film will be shown to participants at the conference and she will be sharing her experiences on how she came up with the idea.“I am really excited to be showing the film to youth from all over the world in Washington, DC,” she said. “This will take my message in the film internationally, not only for Qatar youth.”
Al-Ansari hopes that If They Only Knew will make it to the annual Ajyal Film Festival in Doha this fall, as well as the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy in summer.