Today's Edition
Khaled Al Khawaldeh (Abu Dhabi)
Arab folklore, diverse as it is deep rooted, builds on thousands of years of verbal storytelling, and contains within its catalogues some of humanity’s great tales.
However, away from Aladdin, Arabian Nights and a few other examples, largely brought to the mainstream by Western productions, an entire genre of stories remains to be converted from word of mouth to the big screen.
This is the premise that a new generation of ambitious Arab filmmakers are actively disrupting, bringing to life many of the stories that many in the region grew up hearing at home.
“When I was a kid and hearing stories from grandma and grandpa I remember being taken out of reality”, Yasir Alyasiri; Director, Writer & Producer at Starship Entertainment, told a session held at Culture Summit Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
“Our culture is very rich with fantasy, but I don’t think we utilise it enough.”
Yasir recently worked on an anthology series called “Kaboos” which explores the darker side of humanity through twisted and terrifying tales from Arab folklore and legends/myths.
Speaking to the crowd at the Manarat Al Saadiyat, he described the struggle in getting the buy-in for this type of story, but also the challenge in creating them.
“Arab dramas, they always try to avoid these genres”, he said.
“There is no visual reference to the jinn world, so it was difficult to try to create something like that from scratch.”
Yasir said the gap in production quality between international projects and those coming from the region was growing ever smaller, and he believed that there would be a revolution within the industry in the coming years.
“What was amazing is that each episode of Kaboos was from a different country but all of the stories, with some variation, are known by everyone, they are shared,” he said.
Yasir was joined on stage by Hana Kazim the Founder/Director of the Abu Dhabi-based Wiswas Productions who also worked on Kaboos. She said there had never been a better time to get into the industry.
“Film is so important because it is like a time capsule, we are laying the foundations for what will be a whole industry in the future,” she told the summit.
Kazim gave the example of the French film industry in recreating old French tales and highlighted its impact on both capturing and conserving French culture and language around the world. She said the Arab film industry could achieve great things by following a similar path.
