CineGouna Series head seeks to clear obstacles that hinder writing talent in the Arab world Seasoned Egyptian screenwriter and producer Mariam Naoum sees no shortage of creative talent in Arab television. The harder question is how to give that talent the time, development and routes to market it needs to thrive and build lasting careers. As head of the newly launched CineGouna Series, El Gouna Film Festival’s first development program dedicated to television, she is trying to tackle some of the obstacles standing in their way.
Asked what the industry needs most between time, money and marketing, her answer is clear: “I’ll choose time and marketing.” The move marks El Gouna’s first formal expansion into series, bringing television into CineGouna, the festival’s industry arm. Its inaugural six-week lab, held ahead of the festival, incubated six projects, with writers developing a series bible and pilot before pitching their work at the festival to broadcasters, producers and directors. The inaugural cohort comprises “Sent From Above,” by Lebanon’s Dareen Shamseddine, Egyptian projects “Marketing for Beginners,” by Shaimaa Gohar, “To the Edge,” by Mamdouh Salah and Muhammed Abd El-Sattar, “There’s Something Wrong,” by Marim Dagher, and “Half an Hour,” by Mohammed Elsayed Taha, as well as Saudi writer Rana Wael Matar’s “Why, Soad?” For Naoum, series require a different development process from films, from the workflow itself to how projects ultimately reach buyers.
Streaming has opened new opportunities for Arab television, but she sees too few buyers for the projects being developed. They cannot cater to the whole market, so you have more projects than they can afford to buy,” she observes. Before making the selections, she consulted platforms about what they were looking for and took those needs into account alongside the creative merits of each project.
Once selected, the writers worked with mentors during the six-week lab to develop their projects. We become the ‘middle man’ in that sense.” The question of how those projects might eventually travel beyond the region presents another challenge. Naoum argues that culturally rooted stories can travel if they are well executed.
So it’s more a question of marketing than the creative side.” For CineGouna Series, the first test will be whether the six projects make it beyond the lab.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
