Turner Classic Movies (TCM), part of a Time Warner unit, Turner broadcasting Europe Limited (TBS), celebrated its 10th anniversary this month at a gala dinner in Dubai.

The event was attended by the country’s top media professionals, renowned filmmakers and producers, socialists and TBS’s regional management representatives.

The TCM, launched in 2000 in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, now airs in eight regional versions and in thirteen languages, said a company statement.

The event, which took place on Bateaux Dubai, hosted influential guest speakers such as, Norman Schwartz, who has over forty years in the filmmaking industry in Hollywood and who is currently working as an instructor in the New York Film Academy in Abu Dhabi.

Commenting on the event, Schwartz said: “Today the UAE is a truly cosmopolitan place. Just as Paris was in the 1920s, the UAE has become a harbour for people from all over the Middle East, Africa and India to bring their culture, their life experience to a port, to a new meeting place, to an open and free market for ideas."

"In this souk, a new cinema will be born," said the industry veteran.

After a 40-year career as a sound editor and then dialogue director in Hollywood and Rome in which he worked with everyone from Marlon Brando to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and was admitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Schwartz began directing theatre and teaching actors in Central California.

Six years ago he joined the faculty of the New York Film Academy and has taught directing, writing and acting for their schools in New York, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary and now for the last two years in Abu Dhabi. He is the author of two books on acting.

Alan Musa, vice president and GM, Middle East, Africa & Pan Region, said: "Throughout the past years, TCM has been celebrating the art of legendary actors and actresses such Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant who have shaped the filmmaking industry as we know it today."

"Our 10th anniversary celebrations, also, sheds the light on local talents and their involvement in the filmmaking industry and invited them to have their take on past and present status of the local scene. TCM is always eager to provide its viewers with the best of films for years to come," he added.

To mark the celebrations, TCM will air classical films such as Casablanca (1942), Shaft (1971) and Man in the Moon (1991) this month, the statement added.-TradeArabia News Service