Iranian-American actor and Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo has joined Ron Perlman and Cuba Gooding Jr. on the eight-member jury for the second Golden Dunes International Film Festival in Dubai. The event will take place in Downtown Dubai from November 28 to 30, 2026.

Deadline first reported the appointment of the three actors in an exclusive on Friday, August 28, describing them as the first wave of jurors. The festival’s official website has now announced the full eight-member jury. Joining the actors are Oscar-winning producer Philip B. Goldfine; Pete Goldfinger, a screenwriter on the Saw franchise; Levon Davis, vice president of documentaries at Unanimous Media; journalist and documentary filmmaker Adele Nazarian; and Rashid Mohammed Zubair Al Farooq, co-founder and chief executive of the UAE’s Speedy Comics Group.

Aghdashloo received an Oscar nomination for House of Sand and Fog and won an Emmy for House of Saddam. She is also known for her role in The Expanse. Perlman is best known for playing Hellboy in Guillermo del Toro’s films and for his role in Sons of Anarchy, while Gooding Jr. won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire. The festival said Perlman and Aghdashloo would take on more active roles this year, leading acting and producing workshops on the third day, Monday, November 30.

Each of the festival’s three days will feature a separate programme. Official selections will be screened on Saturday, November 28, at CinemaCity Fountain View in Dubai Mall, followed by question-and-answer sessions with attending filmmakers. The awards ceremony will take place at 6pm on Sunday, November 29, at Belcanto, on the rooftop of Dubai Opera, before 100 invited guests, including jurors, winners, festival partners and accredited journalists. Monday, November 30, will be dedicated to the film industry, with sessions on production, distribution and artificial intelligence in cinema, alongside training workshops. The venues for these events will be announced by September 15.

Awards will be presented in 16 categories, with winners receiving a 24-karat gold-plated clapperboard trophy mounted on a black base. The categories are Best Feature Film, Best Short Film, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best Experimental Film, Best Student Film, Best Arab Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Sound Design. Three additional categories are dedicated to AI-generated works: Best Short Film, Best Promotional Trailer and Best Music Video. The final submission deadline is October 20, with the selected films to be announced on November 12. The full festival programme will be released by September 15.

The festival is organised by AZ Filmz and run by Golden Dunes founder Ali Zamani and Zeus Zamani, whom Deadline described as Los Angeles-based filmmakers. According to Deadline, they are staging the second edition in partnership with Ben Cohen, Scott Carlson and Don Worley. The inaugural festival was held on November 8 and 9, 2025, at Paramount Hotel Dubai and centred largely on the awards ceremony. Gooding Jr. also attended the first edition.

Deadline also reported that Dubai’s reputation as a tourism and entertainment destination had been affected in recent months after the emirate found itself caught in the middle of the US-Iran war, but said this had not prevented the second edition from going ahead. Responding to his appointment, Perlman said cinema knew no borders and that an authentic story, whether from Los Angeles, Tehran, Seoul or Dubai, would reach audiences. Ali Zamani said the first year had focused on establishing the festival, while this year’s goal was to open it to filmmakers who would remain in Dubai for three days and watch one another’s work.