INTERVIEW

What advice would you give to ensure more successful Arab co-productions?

As a Sudanese director and producer who has worked across Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, and beyond, I believe the success of Arab co-productions depends on a shift in mindset — from seeing borders as barriers to recognizing the shared emotional and cultural fabric that connects our stories. My advice is to start with trust. Co-productions aren't just about sharing budgets, they're about sharing visions, histories, and sometimes even wounds. It’s crucial that partners see each other as equals creatively, ethically, and financially. We need to co-produce with purpose, not just funding. A successful co-production should be rooted in genuine artistic and thematic collaboration, not just convenience. We must ask why we are telling this story together? What does each voice bring to it? And how to work together to save our director's perspective and vision from our differences!

What are the best ways to bring together money, talents, and partners from across the region while still telling authentic, culturally specific stories?

The key is to stay rooted in the truth of your story while reaching out with intention. When we made YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY, it was a deeply Sudanese story, visually, emotionally, and spiritually. And yet, it found partners from Egypt, France, Norway, Germany, and more, because the authenticity of the narrative made it universally powerful. People didn’t support it despite its specificity, they supported it because of its authenticity!

With GOODBYE JULIA, we brought together a co-production from Sudan, Egypt, France, Germany, and Sweden at a time when Sudan was going through massive political change. The story remained entirely Sudanese in voice and character, but we were able to build regional collaboration by aligning with partners who believed in the vision of the director and why now such a film, not just the market value that was already great, but also how important it was to make this story now! Similarly, in THE BURDENED, a Yemeni film that we co-produced, we navigated the challenge of working across borders and continents during the Yemeni war, believing in a great vision of this talented Yemeni director, and with collaborators from Sudan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, it happened on the best way we dreamed. And the story stayed true to its local reality because we never diluted the film's identity to appeal to a broader audience. I think that the best way to bring money, talent, and partners together is to start with a clear, honest voice and then surround it with people who respect that voice. Cultural specificity is not a limitation. It is your greatest strength. Partners should elevate it, not erase it, and that requires good choices of partners and a strong personality from the filmmakers!