Noticias

Amid ongoing disruption in the Arab world’s unstable fest landscape, Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is staying the course and increasingly proving its mettle in promoting the cream of the region’s cinematic crop while also providing key support in nurturing new works.

El Gouna chief Intishal Al Timimi proudly points out that the fifth edition of the Oct. 14-22 event has secured eight high-profile features from Arab directors, most of which will be having their Middle Eastern premieres in the Egyptian Red Sea resort after bowing in Cannes and Venice.

They comprise French-Moroccan veteran Nabil Ayouch’s high-energy hip-hop drama “Casablanca Beats”; and two works from Lebanon: Mounia Akl’s dramedy “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” which targets Lebanon’s political malaise; and Ely Dagher’s “The Sea Ahead,” about a young woman who returns from Paris to Beirut and reconnects with the life she had left behind. There...

Distributors throughout the Mena region face a spectacular range of challenges, including a lack of screens, curfews and soaring piracy. Melanie Goodfellow profiles the major players.

The recent period of rapid political and economic change across Mena has resulted in wildly different theatrical fortunes from territory to territory.

Saudi Arabia continues to ban movie theatres but neighbouring UAE and Qatar are witnessing a huge increase in screen numbers and multiplexes and a resulting growth in box office, which is spilling over into Jordan and Iraq.

A 16-screen multiplex, a partnership between Ibrahim Taher’s Al Taher for Cinemas, Eagle Films and Selim Ramia & Co, opened in Amman over the summer. Lebanese exhibitor and distributor Empire is planning a 14-screen venue for the Kurdish Iraqi city of Erbil.

In Egypt, total box-office grosses are down compared to last year after nightly curfews led to the cancellation of evening screenings during the Eid Al-Fitr festivities, traditionally a busy...