KAZAN, September 5. /TASS/. Syrian Cinema Days will be held for the first time within the framework of the XIX Kazan International Muslim Film Festival (KIMFF), which takes place in the capital of Tatarstan from September 5 to 9, the festival's executive director Milyausha Aituganova told reporters during the opening ceremony of the event.

"In addition to the competition program, we have a very extensive non-competitive program, which includes, for example, the Turkish Cinema Days, dedicated to Turkey’s 100th anniversary. And for the first time during the festival, we will have the Syrian Cinema Days. We are expanding our cooperation with countries in order to organize such dedicated days within the framework of the festival. I think it is very important today to find such support points for Russian cinematography, for distribution to work more closely with these countries in the future", - she said.

Aituganova noted that Kazan will also host the Russian-Chinese forum Rostki during the festival, which will include the days of Chinese cinema. "We are not limited to Islamic countries only, even though it seems that way at first glance. We are expanding our geography to include major cinematic players," she added.

This year, the organizing committee of the XIX Kazan International Muslim Film Festival received a total of 712 submissions from 44 countries. The competitive program included 52 films from 21 countries: Algeria, Bangladesh, Great Britain, Greece, Egypt, India, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Turkey. There are ten nomination in each of the following categories "Full-length Feature Film", "Short Feature Film", "Full-length Documentary Film" and "Short Documentary Film", while 12 more films are nominated in the National Competition, which includes movies produced in Tatarstan and films about Tatarstan.