News

Rising Egyptian star Yasmina El-Abd, whose acting career has been on a roll since she was 12, stands as testimony to the fact that female empowerment is becoming a major theme in the Arab world’s film and TV output.

Born in Switzerland to an Egyptian family, El-Abd took acting classes in London and landed her first acting job in the well-received short “The Shadow of Cairo” playing a 12-year-old named Maya who seeks vengeance for her mothers’ death by becoming a superhero of sorts who chases down sexual harassers in Cairo.

A slew of roles have followed, including in powerful Arab patriarchy drama “Daughters of Abdul-Rahman”; as well as in HBO Max kids series “Theodosia,” where El-Abd is the only Egyptian cast member and plays one of the leads, Princess Safiya; the groundbreaking Arabic-language musical feature “Sukkar,” and, of course hit Netflix series “Finding Ola” – the second season of which...

Exclusive: Syrian actor Samer Ismail, whose international roles include Darren Lynn Bousman’s Saudi shot horror movie The Cello, has signed with talent management and promotional agency Mad Celebrity.

Ismail first achieved fame in the Middle East and North Africa as the title character in 2012 Mbc hit series Omar and made his big screen debut in Emirati director Ali F. Mustafa’s 2016 sci-fi thriller The worthy.

Mad Celebrity — a division of the Cairo-based Mad Solutions — will be exclusively responsible for representing Ismail in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) in contracts with production companies and advertising agencies, as well as in dealings with media outlets.

Ismail joins another 60 Arab world talents represented by the burgeoning agency including Egyptian superstar Yousra and buzzy rising actor Ahmed Malek, who enjoys fame at home in Egypt and is also building a buzzy international career with recent credits including Swimmers, Finchley Lane and Boiling Point.

Netflix has unveiled the highlights of its Original Arabic-language content for the Middle East and North Africa in 2024, with shows coming out of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan.

Fresh announcements included the second season of hit female-driven, Kuwaiti finance world drama The Exchange and a third season of unscripted show Dubai Bling, which Netflix promised would “delve deeper” into the lives of the existing characters and expand the “Dubai Bling family”.

Netflix also announced the arrival of Tunisia acting star Dhafer L’Abidine in the cast of the second season of Hend Sabry’s drama Finding Ola.

He joins Sabry in a cast also featuring Sawsan Badr, Hany Adel, Nada Moussa, Mahmoud El Leithy, Acel Ramzy, Omar Sherif, Yasmina El-Abd and Tarek el Ebiary.

In this new season, as the titular Ola’s business teeters on the edge of collapse, she discovers the need to reinvent herself and embarks...

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo was awarded the El Gouna Gold Star for best narrative film for his meditation on art and relationships, “In Our Day,” as the delayed edition of the El Gouna Film Festival held its closing ceremony on Thursday. The Italian animated film “A Greyhound of a Girl,” directed by Enzo D’Alò, and the Brazilian director Guto Parente’s “A Strange Path” picked up the Silver and Bronze Stars respectively.

The jury comprised of Indian director Anup Singh, Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak, Palestinian actress Yasmine Al-Massri, French Lebanese actress Manal Issa and Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy.

In the non-fiction category, Ibrahim Nash’at’s acclaimed documentary “Hollywoodgate” took the top prize, with “Seven Winters in Tehran” and Mila Turajlić’s Serbian film “Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels” sharing the Silver Star, and “On the Adamant,” directed by French director Nicolas Philibert, taking the Bronze Star. The...

Saudi Arabian actress Ahd Kamel’s long gestated feature directorial debut My Driver And I is a step closer to coming to fruition, following the arrival of fresh partners on the project.

Dubai-based pay-tv and streaming giant Osn has boarded the project to make an Osn Original.

It announced its commitment to the project and partnership with the Red Sea Fund, Mad Solutions and the U.K.’s Caspian Films at dinner at the Red Sea International Film Festival on Tuesday evening.

Jeddah-based production companies Yellow Camel and Millimeter are also on board as co-producers.

The partners have also unveiled the key cast including Jordanian star Saba Mubarak as well as Saudi Hip-Hop Artist Qusai Kheder, Sudanese You Will Die At 20 breakout Mostafa Shehata, and Baraa Alem, who co-starred in Saudi road movie-thriller Route 10 and will soon be seen in fantasy series Hwjn.

The feature is being produced as an...

Dubai-based pay-tv and streaming service Osn has partnered with Arab film distributor Mad Solutions, the Red Sea Fund, and the U.K.’s Global Screen Fund, plus U.K. companies Corniche Media and Caspian Films, on Saudi multihyphenate Ahd Kamel’s long gestating feature film debut “My Driver and I.”

The production partnership for the feature was announced during a gala dinner at this week’s Red Sea Film Festival, which is taking place in Jeddah, where the film is also set.

Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak will star alongside regional acting talents, Qusai Kheder, Mostafa Shehata and Baraa Alem.

The feature is being produced as an Osn Original for its pay-tv and streaming network that will showcase the film for its Mena audiences. Mad Solutions holds all international distribution rights outside those Arab-speaking territories.

Kamel grew up in Saudi Arabia and moved to New York in 1998, where she studied at the Parsons School of Design,...

167 film critics from 68 countries voted on the awards organised by the Arab Cinema Centre.

Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s social satire Feathers, which won the top prize at Cannes Critics’ Week last year, has swept the board at the sixth edition of the Critics’ Awards for Arab Films.

The film, which was nominated in four categories, won best film, director and screenplay.

This year’s edition of the awards, spearheaded by the Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc), focuses on Arab-language films that premiered on the festival circuit outside of the Arab world in 2021.

It was voted on by 167 film critics from 68 countries,...

Past best film awards from the previous five editions include Wajib, Yomeddine and Gaza Mon Amour.

Jordanian director Bassel Ghandour’s The Alleys and Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s Feathers lead the nominations in the sixth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

The films each garnered nominations in four categories, including best film, director and screenplay.

Spearheaded and run by the Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc), this edition focused on Arab-language films that premiered on the festival circuit outside of the Arab world in 2021.

It was voted on by 167 film critics from 68 countries, who viewed the films on Festival Scope.

[Warning: The following contains Major spoilers for Moon Knight Season 1, Episode 6, “Gods and Monsters.”] At this point, Marvel fans know there will always be lingering questions at the end of any given MCU series, but its latest drama Moon Knight really left us hanging. In the mid-credits scene, we finally come face-to-face with the third personality in the Marc Spector/Steven Grant dissociative identity disorder triangle — Jake Lockley (Oscar Isaac). And, in perhaps the most exciting development, Marc’s wife Layla El-Faouly (May Calamawy) is now a superhero as well — Marvel’s first Egyptian hero. And they can’t let that gorgeous Wonder Woman-esque costume go to waste, right? Below, we unpack our most lingering questions with director/executive producer Mohamed Diab and executive producer Grant Curtis. Why does Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) leave the scarab behind? Early on in Episode 6, Harrow leaves the scarab on Marc’s dead body before departing with Ammit (voiced by Saba Mubarak). Sure,...

[Warning: The following contains Major spoilers for Moon Knight Episode 6.] Moon Knight has come to a close. And with the finale — which dropped Wednesday, May 4 on Disney+ — comes the first Moon Knight post-credits scene. After an epic battle between gods and avatars, the six-part Marvel limited series ended on a familiar, but altogether happier note. Marc Spector and Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) are content as a package deal free from Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham), the threat of Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) and Ammit (Saba Mubarak) is at bay, and Layla (May Calamawy) is officially an avatar/superhero. But there was one final stone left unturned. And the Moon Knight post-credits scene answered a question that’s been lingering for several episodes while simultaneously setting up wherever the story is going next. It seems Marc and Steven may not be as free from Khonshu as they thought. The credits scene finds Harrow in a mental ...

[Warning: The following contains Major spoilers for Moon Knight Episode 6.] After last week’s trippy, sad stroll through Marc’s (Oscar Isaac) life, Moon Knight’s final episode returns things to the superhero status quo. We get fights aplenty, as well as a meaningful new outfit for a certain character… and by the time the end credits conclude, we realize there’s more to Marc than even Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham) knew. Arthur (Ethan Hawke) gets the idol and makes it to the chamber of the gods, where he kills all of their avatars and releases Ammit (voiced by Saba Mubarak). Even though his scales don’t balance, she still wants him to be her servant. Meanwhile Layla (May Calamawy), who snuck into the chamber with Arthur’s people, releases Khonshu. They form an ...

Mohamed Diab is an Egyptian screenwriter and filmmaker and the mastermind behind lauded films like “Cairo 678” (2010) and slightly gimmicky “Clash” (2016) that is completely set inside a police van during the riots. His latest work “Amira” (2021), done through a co-production arrangement of three countries, while set in Gaza Strip, also came with significant festival reputation (it premiered at Venice) and several awards (most significantly from Rome International Film Festival). Most recently, it was screened at Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Amira is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

The titular character played by Tara Abboud is a teenage girl interested in photography who thinks she can be sure of her roots. Her father Nawar, whom she dutifully visits in the notorious Meggido prison in Israel (where he serves the life sentence for terrorism) has the status of a Palestinian freedom fighter. Nawar’s family takes care of Amira and her mother...

“Suits,” the hit U.S. TV show created by Aaron Korsh, is getting a high-end Arabic adaptation that will play on prominent West Asia satellite pay-tv and streaming service Orbit Showtime Network (Osn) and Egyptian broadcaster Ums.

NBCUniversal Formats, a division of Universal Studio Group, has teamed up with Cairo-based media production company TVision and Osn, as well as Egypt’s Ums, to produce the Arabic redo of the show. Shooting began in January on the first two seasons, comprising 30 episodes. The Arabic-language “Suits” is slated to start playing on Osn and its streaming app Watchit across West Asia, the region also referred to as the Middle East, during the region’s upcoming Ramadan TV season, starting April 2.

“‘Suits’ is one of the most popular TV shows in the world, and we are thrilled to be adapting it for Middle Eastern audiences and partnering once again with our friends at TVision,...

Jordan’s Royal Film Commission has withdraw Oscar hopeful Amira from the 2022 Oscar race following a backlash over the film’s subject.

The Venice Film Festival drama from acclaimed filmmaker Mohamed Diab (Clash) deals with the issue of children conceived with sperm smuggled from prisoners in Israeli jails. In the film, a Palestinian girl’s world is turned upside down when she learns the man she grew up idolizing is not her real father and in fact she was conceived by sperm from an Israeli prison guard rather than a Palestinian prisoner.

The movie’s selection for Best International Film consideration has sparked a backlash among families of Palestinian prisoners and organizations working on prisoners’ rights. The anger has spread on social media.

In a message sent to Jordanian news services today, the Film Commission said: “We do believe in the artistic value of the film, and that its message...

The Middle East premiere of caustic Spanish comedy “Official Competition” will open the Cairo Film Festival, which has assembled a rich roster of international titles for its upcoming 43rd edition, to be held in person Nov. 26-Dec. 5.

Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, who are co-directors of the colorful pic starring Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas — which turns on a billionaire businessman determined to bankroll a memorable movie — are expected, barring complications, to attend the regional launch of their Venice-premiering comedy.

Cairo, which is the grande dame of the Arab world’s cinema shindigs — and the only festival in the Middle East and North Africa region to be accorded category “A” status by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations in Paris (Fiapf) — has been subjected to some disruption lately caused by Saudi Arabia’s deep-pocketed Red Sea Festival.

The Red Sea Festival in May decided to move the dates for...

Since 2012, more than 100 children have been conceived using the smuggled-out sperm of incarcerated Palestinians — or so it is claimed by the end titles of Mohamed Diab’s “Amira.” But here, this phenomenon, the mechanics of which make for a genuinely riveting first act, is somehow judged not dramatically fertile enough to carry an entire film. Instead, Diab’s increasingly tin-eared, hysterical story, co-written with his siblings Khaled and Sherin Diab, devolves into a socio-politically dubious and narratively nonsensical muddle, which may actually be a disguised blessing. The portrait of Palestinian identity it finally presents is so superficial and regressive that its saving grace is that it’s also very difficult to believe.

Proud “daughter of a hero,” 17-year-old Amira (Tara Abboud) knows she was conceived in this unconventional manner. Her freedom-fighter father Nawar married her mother Warda (Saba Mubarak) while already serving out his sentence in an Israeli prison. Husband...

“The Alleys,” “The Legend of Zeineb and Noah” and “I Can Hear Your Voice… Still” were the big winners of the Cairo Film Connection, the co-production platform of the Cairo International Film Festival.

“The Alleys,” the directorial debut from the Oscar-nominated “Theeb” producer Bassel Ghandour, was awarded the $10,000 Badyã Award and $10,000 New Century Productions Prize.

Currently in post-production, “The Alleys” is a Jordan, Egyptian, French and Saudi co-production about a charming hustler who pretends to be a white-collar career man in a gossip-ridden, violent neighborhood.

The jury, comprising Jordanian actor and producer Saba Mubarak, Moroccan producer Lamia Chraibi, and Egyptian filmmaker Abubakr Shawky, was slated to give out 21 awards from 18 different companies, but they added three more to the list during the ceremony.

“The Legend of Zeineb and Noah” by acclaimed Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah, whose 2012 film “After the Battle” competed for the Palme d’Or, took home five of...

Cairo-based film marketing and distribution outfit Mad Solutions is launching Mad Rising Celebrity, a new unit dedicated to launching up-and-coming film and TV acting talents from across the Arab world.

The new Mad Solutions subsidiary has recruited a rich roster of rising Arab actors comprising Saudi Arabia’s Fatima AlBanawi (pictured) – who starred in groundbreaking Saudi comedy “Barakah Meets Barakah,” and more recently landed a small role in new Netflix Arabic original “Paranormal” – and Tunisian thesp Farès Landoulsi, featured in Netflix drama “Messiah,” among other rising celebrities.

“Nobody has been working on new Arab talents,” noted Mad Solutions co-founder Alaa Karkouti, speaking to Variety. He added that besides filling the gap by representing actors the new unit also intends to start handling up-and-coming Arab directors, writers, producers and cinematographers.

Karkouti also noted that Mad Solutions – which has long been active as an Arab world film distributor and has been branching...

The event is Jordan’s first international film festival.

The Amman International Film Festival has selected the juries and set up the awards for its inaugural edition, set to run in Jordan from August 23-31.

The Arab feature-length narrative film jury is headed by Serbian director Srdan Golubović, who will be joined by Jordanian actor-producer Saba Mubarak; and Sarim Fassi-Fihri, executive vice president of the Marrakech International Film Festival and CEO of the Moroccan Cinema Centre.

The three-person Arab feature-length documentary film jury consists of Jordanian filmmaker Mahmoud Al-Massad; Egyptian writer-producer Nadia Kamel; and German filmmaker and artist Andrea Luka Zimmerman,...

Includes new films from Ann Hui, Mohamed Diab and Kaouther Ben Hania.Asia

Love After Love (China)

Dir. Ann Hui

Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui revisits the work of Eileen Chang with this adaptation of 1943 novella Aloeswood Incense about a young woman from Shanghai who heads to Hong Kong to continue her studies, but ends up working for her aunt, seducing rich and powerful men. The cast features Eddie Peng, Ma Sichun and Faye Yu. Hui is regularly feted on the Asian festival circuit but has not been selected for an A-list European event since 2011 when A Simple Life played in competition in Venice.

It is the third feature by Egyptian director Mohamed Diab after ’678’ and ’Clash’.

Paris-based Pyramide International has acquired international rights to Mohamed Diab’s coming of age drama Amira, excluding Arab-language territories and Israel. CAA Media Finance is handling Us rights.

The film wrapped shooting in Jordan this week.

Sister company Pyramide Films will handle the French release, having previously handled Diab’s Clash and 678.

The Palestine-set drama marks the feature debut of actress Tara Abboud who stars as a bubbly 17-year-old who has grown-up believing she was conceived with the smuggled sperm of her imprisoned father.

Her sense of...

The El Gouna Film Festival (Gff) taking place in El Gouna, Egypt September 20 to 28 announced its film selection.

During their press conference attended by Gff founder Naguib Sawiris and El Gouna founder Samih Sawiris, Minister of Tourism Dr. Rania Al-Mashat under whose auspices the festival is held, a number of Gff’s International Advisory Board members, in addition to members of its international jury, and some of the directors, actors and producers of the participating films, Naguib Sawiris explaine the founding of this new festival which might possibly take up the slack caused by the cessation of the Dubai Film Festival:

We believe in the role art plays in the development of society and in challenging regressive ideas… that is why we established Gff.

This year, 15 films are participating in the Feature Narrative Competition, 12 films in the Feature Documentary Competition, 23 films in the Short Film Competition, as well as 5 films...

Two new film festivals in the Arab world — and not in the Gulf States region where Kuwait had its first festival last month — have announced their first editions. Jordan and Egypt, along with the first ever Arab Critics Awards casts a new light onto just what Arab cinema is.

What began several years ago in the recently oil-rich Gulf nations of Dubai, Abu-Dhabi and Qatar who first brought the notion of Arab cinema to the western world with expensive receptions (including a camel one year at the Toronto Film Festival) and ultra fancy festivals (Abu Dhabi has since bowed out of its Tribeca Ff partnership and pulled back on all but its film fund) has now come to a more balanced sharing of Arabic cinema as a multi-culturally wealthy medium.

With the growth of Cairo-based Mad Solutions which started as a public relations agency for Arab-content cinema and expanded into...

Exclusive: Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak stars and produces timely film about Syrian refugees in Turkey.

Cairo-based distributor Mad Solutions has acquired Arab world rights to Turkish director Andac Haznedaroglu’s refugee drama The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul starring Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak as a Syrian woman attempting to get Greece.

The film is a first-ever Turkish-Jordanian co-production and involves Istanbul Film Productions, Andac Film Productions, Istanbul Digital (ID) and Mubarak’s Amman-based company Pan East Media, which also received the backing of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Mubarak plays Meryem, a Syrian woman fleeing her war-town in the company of eight-year-old Lena and her younger sister, the children of neighbours who have perished in the fighting. The cast also features a number of Syrian amateur actors.

“The issue of Syrian refugees, not only in Turkey, but all over the world, is one of the most important issues in the world today, In my view...

Dubai/Exclusive: Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak has signed for the lead role in up-and-coming director Amjad Al-Rasheed’s debut feature Inshallah It’s A Boy – A Chapter From The Fabled Life Of Nawal.

The dark comedy revolves the madcap journey of a recent widow who has two weeks to conceive a male child to stop her in-laws taking possession of her home.

“Amjad is a very talented young director with a fresh and new perspective,” said Mubarak. “His script is different and twisted and tackles a difficult issue in a crazy way. It talks about the position of women in a way that is brave and unusual for an Arab director.”

Mubarak’s credits include Transit Cities (2010) and several Egyptian TV series including Afrah AlQoba. She also stars in Turkish director Andac Haznedaroglu’s upcoming The Guest.

Al-Rasheed, who has been selected for the inaugural edition of Screen’s Arab Stars of Tomorrow, will premiere...

Exclusive: Egyptian agency handling Arab stars Yousra and Saba Mubarak launched last year.

Cairo-based Creative Arab Talent (Cat) — the Middle East’s first talent agency which launched last year — is set to open a new office in Los Angeles this June, with the aim of acting as a bridge between the Arab world and agencies like CAA and UTA.

Founder and CEO Amr Koura [pictured] launched Cat in April 2015 to fill a gap in the market in the Middle East.

“Talent agencies don’t exist in the Middle East. The concept isn’t really known. There are managers for singers but when it comes to film and TV talent there aren’t any agents. Actors, directors and writers tend to get work through their network, cultivating strong ties with producers,” Koura said.

Clients on Cat’s books include Egyptian star Yousra, Jordanian producer-actress Saba Mubarak and upcoming talent Amina Khalil.

Koura is at Cannes to further promote the agency...