Qatari film director Shorooq Shaheen saw her career receive a major accolade at the weekend when she won the Best Documentary Award at the GCC Film Festival for debut short film, “Our Lady of the Rosary”.

The film, directed by Shaheen and Sara Rougani, tells the story of Doha’s largest church. It also explains how the church, which was built in 2009, has changed the lives of Christians living in the country. Said Shaheen: “I wanted to investigate what life is like at the church, and how the Christians feel about it. I also wanted to know the opinions of Muslims living here”.

The idea for the documentary came to her one day when she was driving past the church. “I was thinking about why they built it. I had read somewhere on the Internet that 80 per cent of Qataris were against it. But when I did the interviews with them, I saw many of them were happy with it. They talked about how there are mosques everywhere in Europe.”

Getting permission to shoot inside the church’s premises proved a challenge for Shaheen. “They gave us one hour in the Catholic church. And one hour in the Orthodox church. Separately, I interviewed people that I know and found people through (Qatar) university.”

The documentary has already won a number of awards at the Al Jazeera film festival and at Al Zayed University Festival in Abu Dhabi. “People who have seen it have loved it,” said Shaheen, who is a Community Outreach Associate at the Doha Film Institute. “They say it is very brave to do a documentary on this subject.”

For her next project, Shaheen hopes to travel to Jordan, to document the lives of impoverished youth. “Winning an award at the GCC Film Festival is something that I wanted. I now have my name known in the GCC. It was a pleasure for me.”