If you’ve been on Netflix lately, then you’ve probably seen a few Arab series trending on your homepage. Shows and movies such as Finding Ola, Perfect Strangers or Al Rawabi School for Girls have been a huge success, providing people around the world with an entertaining yet critical take on the Arab world’s most important societal issues.
Having said that, these achievements have led to Netflix partnering up with the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture to extend the platform’s support to new filmmakers by offering them a one-time grant in order to help them bring their visions to life.
Nuha El Tayeb, who is the director of content acquisitions in the Middle East and Turkey, has stated:
“The Arab world has a long-standing history of women in entertainment, and we’ve had incredible successes and firsts from the region that we’re all very proud of. But in order to give more people a chance to see their lives reflected on screen, we need more women behind and in front of the camera”
She also continued by saying:
“The Fund for Creative Equity helps the industry as a whole to have a much more dynamic, interesting, multidimensional representation of women and this is one step in the journey to enabling more women to tell their stories and have new audiences discover their work”.
Now the real question is, who are the five grantees who managed to secure funding for their projects? The lucky and hardworking ladies include Lebanese producers Jana Wehbe and Tania Khoury of The Day Vladimir Died and Manity respectively, Tunisian director and producer of My Name is Clara Sarra Abidi and Asmae El Moudir, who is the Moroccan director and producer of The Mother of All Lies.
We’ll be patiently waiting to witness what their creative spirit will concoct together for their upcoming movies and series.