FestBeat: On the Network of Arab Arthouse Screens

When I came back from the Berlinale on February 19, I felt somewhat discouraged. On the one hand, I believe there’s great talent in Egyptian and Arab filmmaking. On the other, I know we lack the ecosystem to nurture it. It’s a pity that Berlin was kinder to young Egyptian filmmakers than Cairo or Alexandria. But I do think this is slowly changing. 

As part of the Berlinale’s “Forum Expanded” program this year, the Network of Arab Arthouse Screens (NAAS) had a panel discussion and a series of internal meetings about the state of film distribution and circulation in Arabic-speaking countries. For full disclosure, I am involved with NAAS and feel strongly that what it is attempting to do is very important for local Arab film markets.

As anyone living in Cairo, Beirut, Dubai or Tunis today would attest, often times Arab films are not distributed in cinemas around the Middle East and North Africa. In other words, an Arab filmmaker might have a film screening in Berlin, New York or Paris and not in their home country. This is the challenge NAAS takes on by bringing together film exhibitors and distributors to discuss possibilities for diversifying the structures for film exhibition and thus the types of films available in cinemas, locally, to Arab audiences.

In a panel titled “Traversing the Phantasm with NAAS,” an audience member asked whether the belligerent representation of the Arab in the current image economy is something the network is actively trying to address. The answer given by Hania Mroue, the founder and director of Metropolis cinema in Beirut, indicated for me why NAAS is so special in its focus. She replied ( I’m paraphrasing) that before being concerned with international audiences looking at alternative representations of the “Arab,” NAAS is concerned with Egyptian, Lebanese, Tunisian, Moroccan, Palestinian, Emirati and Jordanian audiences looking at challenging and rich representations of themselves and their unique struggles and concerns.

More and more attention is being given to the presence of Arab cinema in the international film market. The Cairo and Abu Dhabi-based marketing firm MAD Solutions has been making partnerships to promote Arab films at many international film festivals in recent years. About a year ago MAD launched the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) initiative as a partnership between 26 organizations with the aim of increasing the presence of Arab films in international film markets. In the Berlinale this year, we got news of a new video-on-demand (VOD) system called Minaa, to be launched as a joint project between MAD Solutions and the Creative Documentary Platform (CDP). “Minaa will be part of the ACC platform, allowing it an international exposure opportunity, starting with one of the most prominent film festivals in the world,” says the press release, referring to the Berlinale.

If we’re to take the hint from the Berlinale programmers, the image is always political. How and on whose terms images travel is a serious matter. Even though it might be exciting to see people from around the world mesmerized by yellow deserts or Arab women on motorbikes, it’s more important to have Arab audiences engage with these images. Through facilitating the distribution and circulation of a wide range of Arab films, NAAS attempts to help films that are challenging in their representations and innovative in their use of cinema make a cultural footprint in their own communities. This is a necessary compliment to more outward-looking efforts.

In the coming week or so I will be collaborating with Alexandria-based writer Ali Al-Adaway to write something about the Egyptian presence in the 66^th Berlinale and what it can tell us about this “cultural footprint” young Egyptian filmmakers are aspiring to make. Ali wrote excellent coverage in Arabic of the Egyptian presence in the Berlinale for the newly launched Tripod magazine, titled “The Independents in Berlin.” Head over to the Tripod website to read Ali’s words in preparation for our co-authored post, which is coming soon.