As the ninth edition of El Gouna Film Festival wrapped in Egypt, the conversation among some of the country’s and region’s leading producers and filmmakers turned to what the industry needs to turn its wealth of talent into films that can find audiences both at home and abroad. Egyptian cinema once dominated film production across the Arab world, but output fell dramatically from its late-20th-century heights. According to figures from the Egyptian Chamber of Cinema Industry, the country produced 112 films in 1988, before output fell to just 16 a decade later.
More recently, production has shown signs of recovery, rising from 51 feature films in 2022 to 67 in 2023. For veteran Syrian producer Mohamed Mashish, who has built a decades-long career in Egypt, capitalizing on that momentum starts with the screenplay. But we don’t have scripts.
I have a nice camera, a good DP, but we can’t do anything without good scripts.” Mashish has seen firsthand how new platforms can expand the reach of Egyptian storytelling. He produced the 2016 drama “Grand Hotel,” which became the first Egyptian and first Arabic-language series to land on Netflix when the streamer released it internationally as “Secret of the Nile” in 2018. He believes younger filmmakers are also benefiting from greater access to work from around the world.
They’re connected on the internet and everything,” he notes. So they are more open and they are ready to move.” But Mashish argues that new perspectives need to be matched with experience. The growth of platforms, he argues, has given filmmakers more places to show their work while exposing audiences to a wider range of filmmaking.
The shift has particular consequences in the Gulf, a crucial market for Egyptian films. Mashish points to Saudi Arabia’s theatrical expansion as an example of how quickly audiences have evolved. Because cinemas are now open in Saudi and in the Gulf, they are watching international cinema.
So they demand this kind of quality.” For Lebanese producer and distributor Ziad Srouji (“Palestine 36”), whose career spans film and television across the Arab world, reaching audiences beyond the region does not mean making Arab films resemble foreign ones. They want stories rooted in a very particular world but driven by a premise anyone can grasp in one sentence.” For Srouji, the challenges often come after the initial idea. It doesn’t get you through production, and it certainly doesn’t get you to an audience.” The bigger obstacles, he believes, are often structural.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
