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Making Movies in Middle East
With the Dubai and Middle East International Film Festivals and a flood of financing, the Middle East is quickly becoming Hollywood Way East
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Even in Egypt, which has a rich film heritage, scraping up money for indigenous productions is a daunting task.
“Egypt is the oldest film industry in the world, yet it’s very hard to find financing,” says veteran Egyptian producer Marianne Khoury. “Films just don’t get made, and that’s why there are some frustrated people there.”
“There have been quality films coming out of Egypt, Lebanon and Syria for some time, but they’ve been coming out on a very selective basis,” adds David Pritchard, president of Los Angeles-based GigaPix Studios, which co-produced, along with Jordan’s Paper & Pen Films, Captain Abu Raed, which picked up a Best Actor award in Dubai and an Audience Award at Sundance.
“The big investment that is happening now is simply a matter of return on investment,” he adds. “There are very few industries left in the world that the U.S. still dominates. The content creation industry is one of the last industries to be completely dominated by America. In music, films, games—everything. It’s merely an investment decision.”
Pritchard should know. He began traveling to the Middle East as an oil executive in the 1970s (“I was in Dubai when there were less than 1,500 people there,” he boasts) and displays an almost evangelical zeal when talking about the potential of the Pan-Arab entertainment industry. In contrast to producers hoping to simply make a buck in an emerging market, Pritchard has a long-term vision that satisfies his impulses as both a businessman and a film lover.
“Captain Raed is a film that was made with an Arab writer-director, with an Arab story and produced in the Arab language,” he says. “My goal in the Arab film community is to create net export product. I want to demonstrate to the Arab world that they can actually create entertainment there that can be sold worldwide, as opposed to investing in a slate of U.S.-based films that may or may not have producer associations or story associations in the Middle East.”
A New Era of Arab Film
Pritchard believes that in order to sustain itself, the Arab film sector doesn’t just need investment capital—it needs to think beyond its borders.
“They have never really aspired to tell us the bigger, broader, more enriching stories,” he declares. “They’ve been telling stories more associated with their local community. I have a much more lofty objective in Jordan—and I’d love to do it in Dubai, as well—and that is to build an industry in the Arab market where they are actually feeding independent filmmaking.
“The Arab world doesn’t have a history of creating content,” he continues. “They have a history of buying ours. So when that is the only way they’re getting content, their culture is being overrun by our culture. The important parts of their culture or values are going to be subsumed by those that we’re presenting to them. I believe it’s a two-way street.”
Pritchard says the timing behind the recent flurry of investment money in the UAE is fortuitous, since societal changes and generational shifts in the area have led to a cultural climate that is far more open to new ideas than it once was.
“It’s only this current generation of Arab kids that have parents who can see the value of being a writer or a storyteller or a filmmaker,” he says. “Those things have not traditionally been a part of their culture. Parents now see that their kids can do this and actually make money.”
Adds Mahyad Tousi, co-founder of BoomGen Studios, “We are banking on the idea that American and Canadian audiences will be extremely interested in content originating from the greater Middle East’s new generation of filmmakers.”
Tousi and his co-founder Reza Aslan (who moderated a panel on plurality and the Middle East at Sundance) are attempting to tap their connections within the Middle Eastern artistic community in an effort to bring a fresh Arab perspective to the big screen. Like many young Arab producers, Tousi is troubled by the cultural and economic strictures placed on Arab moviemakers, but he believes the tide is beginning to turn.
“Economic limitations prevent certain levels of society from obtaining the access and connections required in order to make films,” says Tousi. “This represents a certain type of economic censorship. The culmination of these and other pressures have resulted in increased self-censorship. All of these limitations mean that most mainstream films that are locally funded are perversions of reality… The exciting news is that this framework is shifting. We believe that these changes will only continue to gain momentum with the arrival of the new generation of artists. The old parameters will also go out the door. The new generation is different and has very different ideals and concerns.”
Pritchard agrees, adding that with the current social and political divide between the Arab and western worlds, far more can be accomplished with film than mere entertainment.
“I know how powerful film is,” he says. “I do not have any kind of political agenda—I’m not trying to change the world. All I want to do is provide the opportunity for Arab filmmakers to share their culture with us. That’s what is very important to me, because if we give them the tools to tell us their human stories, the values that we do have in common will rise to the surface.”
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Dubai Venture on 8/06/08 at 2:55 am
I am intrigued to hear that Dubai is a great location for movies. I suppose with all the development that is going on why not. Especially since the city has received a lot of exposure in recent years it can only mean good things, right?
Ali
- Comment by Egypt Property on 8/27/08 at 8:37 pm
I think Dubai is the actual new Hollywood. This might sound strange, but let’s look at what is going on there right now.
All the money is in Dubai and I wouldn’t be surprised if they started building huge casinos to further the never ending influx of people.
Ravi
- Comment by D. Armstrong on 10/27/08 at 12:38 am
I’m seeking investors for a film I’m scheduling to shoot in 2010. My budget is 200 million and Dubai is a great place to film and the money is there. Hello new Hollywood, and they have a great film incentive.
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This story was published in the Spring 2008 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Money and Movie Stars in The Middle East
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