Middle East film industry faces triple expansion challenge

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Winners: (l to r) Local Emirati film makers, Syrian director Nabil Maleh, Oliver Stone and Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum.

Despite the recent success of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), the local film industry faces three major challenges if it is to expand, according to Fadi Fahim, managing director and executive producer of Final Cut Productions. “It needs to attract more professionals, increase access to production funding and develop local talent," he said.

“Filmmaking needs an entire crew with runners and assistants besides directors and producers. Those crew members usually work on a freelance basis, so in order for them to move to Dubai — an increasingly expensive city — they need to be sure that they can generate a certain amount of jobs every month.

The industry is however not big enough to grant that at present,” Fahim told Arabian Business on the sidelines of DIFF.

“There is currently a South African and a Lebanese crew based in Dubai but they are not particularly good and are always booked,” Fahim added. “I estimate it will take another few years before the industry is fully established.”

Fahim, who produced the film ‘Al Seefara Fil Eemara’ (Arabic for the 'Embassy in the building') last year — a film about an Egyptian worker in Dubai — explained that funding feature films is not an easy task in the UAE: “What usually happens when you produce a feature film is that the respective government of the country co-produces the movie with you.

“They are then also involved in the distribution and normally re-invest the profits to support the local industry, for example, by funding new films or film schools. However, when I produced my film last year, the UAE government did not do this.”

Fahim argued that the authorities need to support the local talent pool more in order to expand the Dubai film industry. “The young locals are very motivated, and three awards were presented for local films at the festival. It’s great that talent is starting to be recognised but I think Dubai needs a more established art scene for filmmaking to progress," Fahim said.

“Filmmaking is an art that descends from other fine arts like painting and photography. I think authorities should set up a film school with a veteran director and producer to assist newcomers, and they could stage short film competitions,” he added.

Fahim believes that Dubai has the potential to become a favoured destination for international filmmakers. “There are many advantages to shooting here — Dubai has sunny weather, the desert, authentic Arabic locations but also modern buildings that resemble Western landscapes. At the present there are no studios, but once Dubai Studio City opens filmmakers will be able to shoot an entire feature film exclusively in Dubai.”

With the Middle East’s current affairs being a heated topic in the US, Fahim believes that Dubai is becoming increasingly attractive for foreign movie backdrops such as the successful ‘Syriana’ released earlier this year. “When US filmmakers want to shoot in the Arab world they realistically have the choice between Morocco and Dubai in terms of a stable political environment, suitable locations, modern equipment and a decent crew.

“Dubai is more expensive, but has more diverse locations to offer so I would imagine that Dubai will take the lead in attracting international productions,” predicted Fahim.

The annual DIFF event launched in 2005 and Fahim said that this year's festival was an “immense improvement” on last year’s inaugural festival. “The festivals are growing quickly and DIFF’s chairman Abdulhamid Juma is very sharp and PR oriented. He will surely help to promote the local film industry.”

DIFF managing director Shiwani Pandya explained that this year’s festival was successful in putting Dubai’s film scene on the international map. “We had a lot of response from regional and global film makers who were all keen on attending the festival, especially from the US.”

Pandya, however, agreed with Fahim that film funding is a common problem for UAE producers.

“We are aware of the financial challenges of producing feature films in Dubai, so we are making an effort to get governmental organisations to offer more support. We should have a body set up to provide film funding by next year.”

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