L.A. production company Participant Media announced Wednesday that it has launched a $100 million film fund partnership with the Doha Film Institute, a Qatar organization working to grow the film industry in the Middle East.

The fund will cover production and development funding for 12 to 16 feature films over the course of five years. Participant and Doha will collaborate on development, oversee production and arrange worldwide distribution for the films.

Participant, co-founded by billionaire Jeff Skoll in 2004 to finance socially conscious films, has been involved in the production of such movies as “An Inconvenient Truth,” “The Help” and “Lincoln.”

The company is hoping the partnership with Doha will expand its international audience and feed content to its new satellite TV channel.

“This new relationship … gives us the ability to extend the audience for our socially relevant storytelling to the Middle East, and to mine new sources of compelling content for our digital and TV platforms,” Participant Chief Executive Jim Berk said in a statement.