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Exclusive: Dubai-based global management and production company 75East has signed Lebanese writer-director Nay Tabbara, whose short film Ebb & Flow won the Student Visionary Award at its Tribeca world premiere in June.

Inspired by real events and the political instabilities of the early 2000s in Lebanon, the short follows 14-year-old Loulwa whose plans for a secret date behind her family’s back take an unexpected turn when a bomb explodes in Beirut.

The short followed its Tribeca success with an impressive Academy-Qualifying festival run, screening in competition at festivals including Palm Springs International ShortFest, IndyShorts International Film Festival, HollyShorts Film Festival, and Nashville Film Festival.

Nay Tabbara is a multi-hyphenate Lebanese filmmaker based between New York City and Beirut.

She gained experience on set, working as an assistant director in her native Lebanon for the likes of Ziad Doueiri and Mounia Akl, before moving to the U.S. to earn a...

Arab distributor Mad Solutions has taken world rights to Firas Khoury’s “Dear Tarkovsky,” the Palestinian filmmaker’s follow-up to his fiery Cairo Film Festival winner “Alam” (The Flag). Khoury will be introducing the project to prospective partners this week at the Durban FilmMart.

The director’s sophomore feature follows 35-year-old Farouk, a resident of Ramallah who dreams of making his first film, “A Bridge to Jaffa,” a period piece about a Palestinian resistance fighter. A graduate of Russian film school and a devotee of Soviet auteur Andrei Tarkovsky, Farouk is searching for an outlet for his artistic ambitions beyond the schlocky wedding videos he produces to make ends meet.

But the first-time director struggles to finance his provocative film, which includes scenes of his protagonist on the battlefield in armed combat with Israeli soldiers. As his frustration mounts, he cooks up a scheme to con one of Ramallah’s...

Exclusive: Dubai-based management and production company 75East has signed Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel, whose narrative feature debut To A Land Unknown is playing in Directors’ Fortnight this year.

75East, was launched last December by former Mister Smith sales executive Antone Saliba under the banner Untamed Talent with a focus on the Swana region (South West Asia and North Africa), and has recently rebranded.

The only Palestinian feature in Cannes this year, To A Land Unknown tells the story of the desperate attempts of two Palestinian cousins stranded in Athens to find a way to reach Germany.

Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. When Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan, which involves them posing as smugglers and taking hostages in an effort to get him and his best friend out of their hopeless environment before it is too late.

Untamed Talent, the recently launched Arab world management and production company led by former Mister Smith Entertainment executive Antone Saliba is rebranding as 75East and bringing on board Shams Mohajerani, a former acquisitions executive at Cairo-based Mad Solutions, as manager and producer.

The change in name to 75East of the company, which launched last December with backing from Front Row Productions – a joint venture between leading Middle East distribution companies Front Row Filmed Entertainment and Empire Entertainment – is a geographical reference to the wider Southwest Asian and North African (Swana) region from Morocco to Pakistan, “reflecting the company’s commitment to representing talent beyond Arabic-speaking territories,” according to a statement.

The addition of Mohajerani, an Iranian-American raised in Boston, will expand the company’s reach outside the Arab world and commit to its focus on neighboring territories “including the Persian-speaking world, as well as filmmakers with ties to the region...

Despite being part of a young generation of Palestinian Arabs whose families chose to stay and challenge the Israeli state after Al-Nakba, 17-year-old Tamer and his friends are just like any other group of teenage boys. They clumsily search for drugs, flirt with girls, play video games, and slack off at school. However, when a beautiful new student named Maysaa joins their class, Tamer immediately falls for her and, by association, is drawn into her political activism. Together they join fellow classmate, Safwat, in an operation to covertly raise the Palestinian flag and peacefully disrupt the local celebrations planned for Israel’s Independence Day—otherwise known to Palestinians as a day of mourning and memorialization for their displacement 70 years prior. Unsure of his own political convictions, Tamer must quickly determine what matters to him and what price he is willing to pay for freedom.

A skillful examination of the fraught...

Israel's Independence Day, which is celebrated in all glory in the country, actually coincides with the commemoration of Al-Nakba (The Catastrophe), a day the Palestinians commemorate the 1948 events that led to their dispossession and displacement from Mandatory Palestine. Firas Khoury, in his debut movie, uses the particular concept in order to present a coming-of-age story with intense social, political and historical repercussions, by focusing on the lives of youths whose Palestinian parents chose to actually stay in Israel.

“Alam” Premieres on VOD & Digital on April 26, courtesy of Film Movement

17-year-old Tamer is an artistic youth who has troubles at school, as, just like his best friends, Shekel and Rida, he spends most of his time hanging out on the street, searching for way to buy a joint, playing video games, talking about girls, and in general, slacking out. However, when a beautiful new student, Maysaa', joins the classroom, she draws...

Safe to assume the ongoing atrocities in Gaza will engender cinema, fiction and documentary alike, further into the future than we can imagine. Decades of aggression have yielded, in just this last year, the TIFF selection Alam and Berlinale winner No Other Land; if what absurd, horrific controversy the latter quickly engendered is any indication, the industry faces many moments of reckoning. It remains to be seen what, if any, attention comes from Lyd, a “sci-fi documentary” that examines the eponymous city––once Palestinian, now Israeli, and since 1948 a site of considerable exile and strife––from its imagined perspective. Ahead of an April 26 engagement that starts at New York’s Firehouse Cinema, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the trailer.

Here’s the synopsis for Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland’s film: “Lyd is a speculative feature-length documentary that follows the rise and fall of Lyd – a 5,000-year-old metropolis...

While it seems unfathomable there can be any controversy related to the human suffering currently happening in Gaza, the on-the-ground reporting brings a vital, harrowing call to action. By extension, cinema from the region can help those around the world step in the shoes of those enduring unceasing oppression. Firas Khoury’s TIFF selection Alam, which depicts the fraught political awakening young Palestinians are forced to undergo, will now get a U.S. release on April 26 and we’re pleased to exclusively debut the new trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “Despite being part of a young generation of Palestinian Arabs whose families chose to stay and challenge the Israeli state after Al-Nakba, 17-year-old Tamer and his friends are just like any other group of teenage boys. They clumsily search for drugs, flirt with girls, play video games, and slack off at school. However, when a beautiful new student named Maysaa...

Untamed Talent, a management and production company led by former Mister Smith Entertainment executive Antone Saliba, is launching with the backing of Dubai-based Front Row Productions, a joint venture of leading Middle East distribution companies Front Row Filmed Entertainment and Empire Entertainment.

Front Row Productions will provide capital and strategic value to support Untamed Talent’s goals to innovate new business models covering the South West Asia and North Africa region, the fastest-growing entertainment market in the world. The focus will be not only on representing filmmakers from established Middle East industry hubs of Egypt and Saudi, it will also identify, develop and promote talent from traditionally underrepresented countries within the region such as Jordan, Morocco, Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and Iran.

Untamed will work on a non-exclusive basis with all production and distribution parties in the region, as well as U.S. and international studios and streamers to maximize opportunities for its clients.

‘Hajjan’ director Abu Bakr Shawky and ‘Theeb’ producer’ Bassel Ghandour on initial clint roster.

Untamed Talent, a new management and production company led by former Mister Smith Entertainment executive Antone Saliba, has launched with the backing of Dubai-based Front Row Productions and unveiled its first roster of clients.

The firm will represent filmmakers from the established Middle East industry hubs of Egypt and Saudi as well as promoting talent from more underrepresented countries in South West Asia and North Africa such as Jordan, Morocco, Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Iran.

Front Row Productions, a joint venture of leading Middle East distribution...

Exclusive: Paramount Pictures‘ new Mean Girls film, based on the Tony-nominated Broadway show and the classic film comedy that inspired it, has found its Kevin G. in up-and-comer Mahi Alam (American Born Chinese), with veteran comedic actor Connor Ratliff (Search Party) also coming on for a role.

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Alam’s character Kevin, portrayed in the original movie by Rajiv Surendra, is the Mathlete friend of protagonist Cady, who harbors a crush on her new friend Janis at North Shore High. Ratliff will play teacher Mr. Rapp.

The pair join an ensemble that also includes Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp,...