Cannes: Is Arab Cinema on the Cusp of a “New Golden Age”?

No one would have predicted this box office result: Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron’s long-awaited follow-up to the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, was knocked out of the top spot in Saudi Arabia in only its third week of release — by a local family comedy about wrestling. It wasn’t even a closely run race that weekend: Sattar sold 40 percent more tickets than its blockbuster rival and set a new record for any Saudi film on home soil, taking home $2.2 million in its first 12 days.

Funded by new local production companies Telfaz11 and Muvi Studios, led by Saudi actor and stand-up comedian Ibrahim Al Hajjaj and having premiered at the Red Sea Film Festival, the two-year-old event that offers a film fund — $14 million of grants available to more than 100 directors of African nationality or Arab nationality or origin, for projects from development to postproduction — it seems Sattar was just a taste of what’s to come since the country reopened cinemas to the public in spring 2018. 

“It’s an interesting time,” says Mohamed Hefzy, the prolific Egyptian screenwriter and producer responsible for more than 40 titles and former president of the Cairo Film Festival, as well as a jury member for international festivals including Sundance and Venice. “Arab cinema needed a lifeline. And I think Red Sea is that lifeline, because of the great support that they offer in terms of the fund. It’s such a generous grant. Saudi Arabia in general is invigorating.” So invigorating, it could become the next Arab cinema powerhouse, following in the long-established footsteps of Hefzy’s own home nation.  

“I think that’s a logical evolution of where things are going,” Hefzy says. “There’s a middle class that is hungry for cinema in Saudi Arabia, which is really not the case in some other countries. If you look at the number of tickets sold annually, per capita, in Egypt, it’s disappointing. Compare it to Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Qatar or other Arab countries, and it’s clear Egypt is suffering economically at the moment. It’s happening all over the world — but in Egypt, because of the devaluation of the currency, there’s huge inflation.” 

Such contrasts make it clear that “Arab cinema” as a term can be rather reductive, and that the output of the many countries that share the Arabic language is multilayered. 

“It’s always random,” says Alaa Karkouti, film analyst and co-founder of regional independent studio MAD Solutions and the Arab Cinema Center (ACC). “Not all Arab countries have an established industry. So any successes from such places are based on the efforts of the individuals involved.” 

He name-checks the $500,000-budget 2015 Jordanian film Theeb, which took many by surprise when it broke local cinema records for an art house film, had its premiere in Venice and was nominated for the best international film Oscar. “It inspired other Arab filmmakers,” Karkouti adds, “encouraging them to stay in the industry. Since its release, something has changed. I’m not saying it was like a tornado, but it had an impact.”

Now Jordan, along with Sudan, has films showing at Cannes for the first time. Hefzy, meanwhile, thinks North Africa is where a lot of the breakouts are coming from at the moment, “especially Morocco and Tunisia.” The Tunisian feature Four Daughters is in competition, while there are three other Arab films in the Un Certain Regard section: the Moroccan The Mother of All Lies and Les Meutes, and the Sudanese Goodbye Julia. All of these, plus the Senegalese Banel & Adama — also in competition — have been backed by Saudi’s Red Sea Film Fund. Surely all this is a clear sign that the stars are aligning for the region’s often internationally sidelined industry. 

“There hasn’t been that worldwide success for an Arab film yet — such as what we’ve seen from Korean cinema, for example, or Mexican cinema, 20 or 30 years ago,” says Hefzy. “We haven’t broken out in the way that China did in the ’80s and ’90s. But I think it’s going to happen. There have been glimpses of it. In China, Nadine Labaki’s last film, Capernaum, made more than $60 million at the box office. But that’s just one film breaking out. It’s going to take a lot of investment in not just films, but infrastructure, skills and training. It’s a process, and we’re going to be about that process at the moment.” 

Doha Film Institute (DFI) CEO Fatma Hassan Alremaihi is more bullish. “It’s a new golden age,” she says. She should know. In the past 12 years, DFI, the region’s longest-serving such initiative, has supported more than 750 films from more than 75 countries, with nearly 80 percent of them focused on the Arab world, including Capernaum, as well as 2019 Palestinian film It Must Be Heaven, selected to compete for the Palme d’Or. “It’s our mission to encourage and nurture new and independent voices of cinema in the region. And it’s really been a privilege to be a part of this new era of Arab cinema. We’ve seen a huge increase in demand from distributors, sales agents and programmers from around the world for authentic, diverse stories that shed light on all aspects of life in the region — not just the stereotypes that come out of it.” 

Moving away from those topics most commonly expected of Arab cinema seems to be a key part of this new momentum. Perhaps surprisingly — or not, given Sattar’s runaway success — its most popular genre domestically is comedy, while films with more global ambitions seem to focus on the theme of conflict and its lasting impact. 

“Obviously, the political situation always sets the trend,” says Hefzy. “It’s legal immigration films or refugee films or female-driven themes, which are great. I love it too, though, when festivals take risks and program films that are not purely based on … their political compass or orientation. I think that’s what we need more of. It doesn’t matter what the film is about, it’s how it’s made and how it tells the story.”

The next piece of the puzzle is distribution, which insiders say must play a larger role in broadening Arab cinema’s horizons. Within the region, that means opening more independent cinemas to enable more of an art house scene to grow. 

“[At the moment], you will find only one screen, almost, in each country,” explains Karkouti. “I would love to see some of that money from the Red Sea Film Festival going to support independent cinemas,” adds Hefzy. “The cinemas need to survive and we need more of them. If we don’t have the support for distribution and exhibition, then it’s going to be hard to show films when we support them.” 

Then, of course, there are the streamers, which Hefzy says need to ramp up their investments in Arab content. Although the first ever Arabic original Netflix film was released in early 2022, the comedy-drama Perfect Strangers, and the platform has Middle Eastern original series in the single digits, such as the 2019 Egyptian drama series Paranormal — both produced by Hefzy — the industry luminary believes they have a long way to go.

“I was very happy to work with Netflix on Perfect Strangers, Paranormal and a new project that has not been announced yet,” Hefzy says. “But it’s been slow for Netflix and there’s really a lot of catching up to do for Amazon, Apple and the others in terms of producing and commissioning series and films in the Arab world.” 

So should all go according to such plans, what does the near future hold for the region’s cinema? “It depends on which country,” clarifies Karkouti again. “The fastest growth is happening in Saudi Arabia; there is some stability in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, but for the rest of the market, it all depends on the political situation, the finance, and the random coincidence of producers finding interesting projects.”

But anyone keeping a close eye on the many moving parts of the Arabic film scene right now knows that the unpredictable can very much happen. 

“Are we going to manage to break out of our cultural bubble and hit the masses?” asks Hefzy. “Even if we’re talking about cinephiles all over the world or people who love world cinema — are we going to be able to break through that barrier that Korean cinema has cracked? I hope so.”