When the regional streaming service icflix announced last year that it was to move into Arabic content production, it didn’t go easy on the hyperbole.
This was no under the radar, soft-launch announcement. Instead, the icflix chief executive Carlos Salim Tibi dramatically announced that the service aimed to become “the Warner Brothers of the Middle East”.
Its first film, HIV, was released in Egyptian cinemas and online, in October. A second, Al Makida, followed in December.
The company plans to release a dozen regionally produced movies by October, and although the releases have so far only had a limited Egyptian cinema release alongside streaming on the icflix site, Tibi ultimately intends to have films showing on 1,500 screens across the region.
With a third film newly wrapped, The National caught up with Tibi and icflix's founder and chairman Fadi Mehio.
Mehio was pleased to inform us that their plans had progressed even further.
“We’ve actually completed another two films, and a fifth one is in production,” he says. “Last week I approved the last of the 12 movies we’ll be shooting in the first year of the plan, and we’ve started work on our first original TV series.”
So far, production has focused on Egypt, but Mehio was heading to Morocco after our meeting, where icflix is launching its first subsidiary in the region.
“We’re launching the icflix Morocco site and we’ll also be producing six movies in the Maghreb in the Arabic-French dialect in conjunction with the Moroccan City of Production,” says Mehio.
The company has plans to set up regional bases across the Middle East and in Nigeria.
But icflix is a Dubai-based company, so why has production so far focused on Egypt, not the UAE?
“Egypt is the centre of the Arabic media,” says Mehio. “If you make it in Egypt, you can make it anywhere.
“Here, it’s not yet as developed. However the production facilities here are great and we will start leveraging that.
“We’ve had talks with twofour54 about facilities and we’re working on that. After Ramadan we will be producing a Saudi/Moroccan film, and we’re thinking of a GCC series, though nothing is finalised yet.”
When discussing original television-series content, Mehio becomes even more animated than when talking about the films – perhaps not surprising given that Netflix's House of Cards is the biggest original streaming service hit to date.
“Our first series will be about a real-life Egyptian superman,” he says. “There’s people from a certain area of Egypt where one in 10,000 guys are born with incredible strength – they can bend coins with their eyes and bend steel bars. Our story follows one of these guys who grows up with his father teaching him never to use his powers for evil.
“Then he joins the army and they want to use him for special operations, which goes against his principles, so he takes on a secret persona as a trainer in an orphanage to keep doing good.
“It has everything – action, drama, romantic interest. Season one goes into production on March 1 and we’ve commissioned season two already. It’ll start screening after Ramadan.”
Before then, icflix won’t be ignoring Ramadan audiences, with a special treat planned for the Holy Month.
"We have an exclusive series based on the 1001 Nights stories, with production levels on par with Game of Thrones," says Mehio.
“This isn’t self-produced – we’ve bought it exclusively from the producers and will be helping with the production. We’ll play one episode a night in a traditional Ramadan-drama format, and we’ve commissioned season two and a movie for after Ramadan.
“We’ll be dubbing it into six major languages, too, including English, French and Urdu. It’s a major international story, with pirates, treasure and dragons. When you see it you’ll be amazed it’s coming from this region.”
High-quality productions that can reach beyond regional audiences seem to be a key feature of Mehio’s game plan and there is at least one more major feature film in the works but he’s keeping his cards close to his chest for now.
“We’re making a huge historical epic movie,” he says. “I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s going to be a huge, impressive production. This is the movie that we really think 400 million people will go and watch.”
It's good to see such ambition and confidence – you can find out whether the hype is justified, and watch icflix's extensive catalogue of Arabic movies and shows, at www.icflix.com.
cnewbould@thenational.ae
