Image Nation, the Abu Dhabi film and TV production company, has held discussions with officials in Saudi Arabia about building the kingdom’s TV and film industry.
The announcement of a General Authority for Entertainment as part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan has triggered an expectation that the kingdom will eventually launch cinemas and entertainment hubs – facilities that are currently banned in the country.
“We will seek to offer a variety of cultural venues – such as libraries, arts and museums – as well as entertainment possibilities to suit tastes and preferences,” reads an extract from the Vision 2030 document, launched in May this year.
Image Nation, which has helped build a sustainable TV and film industry in Abu Dhabi, said it will to play a similar in helping Saudi Arabia develop its own TV and film industry.
“[Saudi officials] are now just realising as part of their own 2030 plan the need to engage young people and build this [film] industry,” Michael Garin, CEO of Image Nation, told Arabian Business.
With an initial $200 million investment from the Abu Dhabi government in 2011, the self-funding media company has developed a film industry capable of producing Hollywood-standard movies like Zinzana and a TV industry that has launched a pan-Arabic TV channel Quest Arabiya.
Image Nation is also in the final stages of completing its courtroom drama TV series, Justice. Set in Abu Dhabi and shot in Arabic, the show brought in an Emmy award-winning writer and Academy award-winning producer to help create what will be one of the region’s most expensive TV dramas ever produced.
Michael Garin, CEO of Image Nation
Garin said Image Nation will use its vast experience and knowledge to help the Saudi’s General Authority for Entertainment to create its own industry in the kingdom.
“What I have told them, and they totally agree and accept, is that we’ve spent six-and-a-half years and over $200 million to get to where we are today. In our business, in this part of the world, time and money are not substitutes for one another. While Saudi can afford $200 million, they can’t afford six-and-a-half years.”
Garin said Image Nation has spoken with officials from the kingdom who are “in the inner circle” and while nothing concrete is in place, there’s a broad agreement – based on the recently-signed UAE-Saudi Cooperation deal – about what needs to be done to develop a TV and film industry in Saudi Arabia.
“We’re hoping to do basically everything in Saudi that we’re doing here – training, production and development – and helping to build an industry that will ultimately be populated by Khaleejis [Gulf nationals] – that it won’t be a Saudi industry, because we don’t have enough people here. Our aspiration is to build a regional industry,” Garin said.
While officially Saudi Arabia still bans movie theatres, Garin suggested that new malls being built currently are designed to include them. “They’re just not open, [but] it appears that they will,” he said.
Image Nation also is in “advanced discussions” with “one or two” US television companies to use Abu Dhabi as a “laboratory” for filmmaking.
He expects “one big deal” to be announced towards the end of September or early October.
“[Image Nation will be] a magnet for Western companies to bring their resources, experience and money to create cutting edge content with us,” Garin said. “We’re getting access to things we could never afford and don’t have the experience, expertise or resources to do.”
Image Nation announced last year that it would invest more than $100m in the TV and film industry over a five-year period. One year on, Garin says the goal is on track but may have to be altered, given recent agreements.
“One of the things I’m hoping will happen with the Saudi partnership is that we can accelerate that and expand it because it makes no sense to make Saudi films or Emirati films. We ought to be making Arabic films using Saudis and Emiratis because the human resources of our region are too small, even if the population is larger, to try and create national industries,” he said.
“I’ve been a very strong advocate of saying we shouldn’t even have a Dubai industry or Abu Dhabi industry; we need to have a UAE industry because we don’t have an indigenous market in 10 million people.”
Read full interview here: Switched on: Image Nation CEO Michael Garin
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