Saudi Arabian actress Ahd Kamel’s lengthy gestated characteristic directorial debut My Driver And I is a step nearer to coming to fruition, following the arrival of recent companions on the challenge.
Cairo-based advertising and firm Mad Options has introduced it’s partnering with Dubai-based pay-TV and streaming big OSN and the Purple Sea Movie Fund on the challenge, which additionally has the backing of the UK International Display screen Fund.
The companions have additionally unveiled the important thing forged together with Jordanian star Saba Mubarak in addition to Saudi Hip-Hop Artist Qusai Kheder, Sudanese You Will Die At 20 breakout Mostafa Shehata, and Baraa Alem, who co-starred in Saudi street movie-thriller Route 10 and can quickly be seen in fantasy sequence Hwjn.
The characteristic is being produced as an OSN Authentic for its MENA audiences. MAD Options has all worldwide distribution rights exterior Arab-speaking territories.
The manufacturing partnership was introduced at a dinner on Tuesday night on the Purple Sea Worldwide Movie Pageant, working December 1-10 in Jeddah.
The story revolves round an unlikely friendship between a privileged Saudi woman Salma and Gamar, a younger Sudanese man.
Gamar strikes to Jeddah after being employed as Salma’s driver and their relationship rapidly develops into an intimate friendship that lasts all through her teenage years and past. It’s a story of independence and discovering household in probably the most sudden locations.
Actress Kamel made her directorial debut with the 2013 quick movie Sanctity, which MAD additionally distributed.
She is greatest identified for her position as a instructor in Haifaa Al-Mansour’s ground-breaking 2014 movie Wadjda, and likewise featured within the forged of the BBC-Netflix sequence Collateral.
Kamel defined that the movie is predicated on a private story.
“I’ve been growing My Driver & I for a number of years and I wished to base the movie on my reminiscences of Jeddah within the Eighties and 90s. Witnessing Salma’s common journey by means of adolescence, towards the backdrop of societal expectations, is definitely a theme that tugs on the heartstrings of all audiences alike,” she stated.
Mad Options co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab stated of the challenge: “Having watched Ahd develop her labour of affection through the years, it provides us a lot pleasure to be a part of the manufacturing alliance that may lastly permit her beautiful story to return to life. Her great story opens a window on life in Saudi Arabia throughout her youth, a Saudi world that’s now present process such speedy transformation.”
Talking on the dinner saying the brand new partnership, Joe Kawkabani, Group CEO at OSN, advised the Purple Sea Movie Pageant: “The area’s untold tales deserve a wider viewers, and My Driver & I is the embodiment of tales that deserve an expansive medium.”
OSN, which delivers premium TV and streaming content material in 22 MENA international locations, has introduced a slew of authentic movies and sequence for the approaching 12 months, together with the characteristic movie Yellow Bus and the Kuwait-based sequence Fashionista.
