As part of its support to Washington’s Arabian Sights Film Festival, AGSIW’s Raymond Karam participated in a panel on the “New Arab Cinema.” Panelists discussed the wide ranging and significant strides in the evolution of Arab cinema, regionally as well as internationally, and the requisites for a strong industry with solid foundations. Karam spoke of the importance film plays as a vehicle to understand and study the culture and society of a country. He emphasized some of the challenges faced by films from the Arab world, including the need for a crossover film that does for Arab cinema what “Amores Perros” and “Old Boy” did for Mexican cinema and Korean cinema respectively. Karam added that this is a double challenge for Arab cinema in that film would need to cross over into the wider Arab market first: “The Arab world is not a monolith but is very diverse culturally, and even linguistically. It’s historically been difficult to release an Arabic film outside of its home territory – unless it’s Egyptian. A Lebanese film might be very successful in Lebanon but that doesn’t mean it will work in Dubai, Cairo, or Amman.”

The panel was moderated by Colin Brown, former editor-in-chief of Screen International, and managing partner of international operations at Mad Solutions. The panel also included Perihan AbouZeid, co-founder of Movie Pigs, Khadija Al Salami, director of I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced, Najwa Najjar, director of Eyes of a Thief, Sherif Nakhla, director of Les Petits Chats, and Danielle Perissi, head of documentary, marketing, and communications at Image Nation, Abu Dhabi.