High Center East and North African impartial distributor and expertise company MAD Options is including a brand new string to its bow with the launch of Arab cinema-focused worldwide gross sales firm MAD World.
The Dubai-based firm will make its market debut in Cannes.
Titles on its packed inaugural slate embrace French-Egyptian-Palestinian director Rani Massalha’s The Return of the Prodigal Son and Palestinian filmmaker Laila Abbas’s Thank You For Banking With Us. (scroll down for full line-up).
MAD World will probably be spearheaded by MAD Options co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, in addition to third Managing Associate, Colin Brown, who will all assume Co-President titles.
“Till now, Arab filmmakers have been on the mercy of a global gross sales ecosystem with preconceived notions about what Arab cinema ought to be in an effort to journey,” commented Brown.
“We intend to problem these limitations, exploring all method of distribution choices around the globe, even unconventional ones, in an effort to develop the worldwide viewers for a wider vary of Arab storytellers.”
The trio will probably be joined by two European executives skilled within the worldwide licensing enviornment.
Edin De Liancourt, whose expertise contains stints at Allrites, Movie Seekers and Goodfellas, has been employed as VP Gross sales and Acquisitions. He will probably be assisted by Jeanne Deny, who beforehand gained in gross sales and acquisitions at French firms SND and Federation Studios, within the place of Director Gross sales and Acquisitions.
The official transfer into worldwide movie gross sales builds on MAD Options’ success with Goodbye Julia, which made historical past final 12 months as the primary Sudanese movie to play in Official Choice in Cannes when it world premiered Un Sure Regard.
The corporate scored a raft of gross sales to territories together with France, Benelux, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and German-speaking territories, whereas it mounted a profitable theatrical launch throughout Arab world.
The corporate additionally loved success final 12 months with 2023 Administrators’ Fortnight brief movie The Purple Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry, which turned the primary Jordanian movie ever offered to international streaming platform Mubi.
Along with buying worldwide rights to extra worldwide co-productions, the Cairo-based studio has turn out to be more and more concerned in packaging Arabic tasks with worldwide market potential.
Headquartered in Cairo, MAD Options can also be operational within the UAE, Lisbon and New York, with representatives in Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon.
Based in 2010, MAD Options has a rights library of greater than 500 movie titles, and can also be concerned in financing, manufacturing, packaging, gross sales, advertising and releasing of Arab leisure that spans the gamut from competition prize-winners to industrial blockbusters.
In addition to working with new titles, MAD World will deal with gross sales on the library that includes current competition award-winners, documentary options, shorts, back-catalog titles, and regional field workplace and streaming successes, a lot of which haven’t been seen by audiences outdoors of MENA.
“With the creation of MAD World now we have created a devoted platform for exporting Arabic cinema in all its variety, each by way of subject material and native sensibilities,” stated Karkouti and Diab. “MAD has a 15-year historical past of breaking new floor for Arab movies; MAD World will take that boundary-pushing spirit to a complete new worldwide degree.”.
The inaugural MAD World line-up (synopses offered by MAD World)
The Return Of The Prodigal Son (Egypt/Tunisia/France) – the winner of the highest venture prize at the latest Purple Sea Souk, Rani Massalha’s movie tells the story of an Egyptian pig farmer whose Coptic Christian group is thrown into turmoil in the course of the swine flu epidemic that broke out in the course of the Mubarak regime. In pre-production.
Thank You For Banking With Us (Palestine/Germany/Qatar) – After making a splash together with her documentary Ice & Mud, Palestinian filmmaker Laila Abbas returns with this female-empowerment drama about two sisters who concoct a scheme to divert their father’s inheritance in defiance of sexist bequeathal guidelines dictated by Sharia Legislation.
The Final Exorcist (Saudi Arabia) – Directed by award-winning Saudi author Asim Altokhais, this horror function is tailored from his personal comedian e book concerning the battles of an exorcist to save lots of a tribal chief’s kidnapped daughter from the clutches of the djinn underworld spirits in 1890 Saudi Arabia. In pre-production.
Blue Card (Sudan) – Debut movie of Mohammed Alomda, from creators of You Will Die At Twenty and Goodbye Julia comes one other story of Sudanese resilience within the face of warfare and displacement. Blue Card follows a recently-settled Sudanese refugee trying to make ends meet in a nursing house in Cairo till his software for asylum in Europe goes via. In pre-production.
A Fowl From Paradise (Tunisia) – An exploration of the at instances comically weird practices surrounding Tunisian weddings from the attitude of an outsider, now in post-production. It’s directed by Murad Ben Cheikh, whose debut function documentary No Extra Concern was chosen as a Particular Screening on the 2011 Cannes Movie Pageant.
Yellow Bus (India/Jordan/UAE/US) – Wendy Bednarz’s accomplished — and already on the competition path — function narrative debut sheds gentle on the difficulties expats dwelling within the UAE face within the wake of crises, following a mom shattered by grief within the aftermath of the lack of her daughter by the hands of her college’s gross negligence.
La Zone (Tunisia/Germany/France/Luxembourg) – set within the murky underbelly of contemporary Tunisia, Lassaad Dkhili’s accomplished thriller follows a cop whose small-town life is turned the wrong way up when a gangster’s girlfriend steals his gun.
The Final Rehearsal (Morocco) – Yassine Fennane’s accomplished drama lifts the curtain on each psychological sickness and show-business life. Tensions escalate when a stage director begins taking antidepressants forward of the play’s scheduled efficiency in entrance of a producer and a cultural supervisor from the French embassy.
This Is My Evening (Syria/UAE) – Written, directed, produced and acted by younger Syrian expertise Jafra Younes, this accomplished movie tackles what it’s prefer to lose safety after the Syrian revolution – all shot in a single take.
Woman Of Wind (Tunisia) – transgression is a prevailing theme in Moufida Fedhila’s female-driven coming-of-age movie which follows a veiled teenage skateboarder confronted with making life-changing selections when her ex-jihadist father all of the sudden reappears. In pre-production.
