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Exclusive: LA’s 3Point0 Labs has continued its signing spree by adding Saudi-American producer Dh’Bab Productions to its ranks.

Dh’Bab is led by Saudi Arabian actor and producer Hishan Fageeh (Barakah Meets Barakah) and Sultan Tamer, and was founded with a mission of being a bridge between the Middle Eastern country the U.S. It has now signed with talent management house 3Point0 Labs, which has been expanding internationally with a spate of talent deals in recent months.

“The local Saudi and Gcc industries have fostered a deep well of creative talent that wants nothing more than to share their stories and experiences with the world through art,” said Andrew Cutrow, Chief Business Officer and Head of the Entertainment division of 3Point0 Labs. “Coming off the paradigm shifting work we did in the boxing space in the Kingdom, we’ll continue to build bridges and push boundaries.”

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Exclusive: Saudi director Mahmoud Sabbagh, best known internationally for 2016 comedy-romance Barakah Meets Barakah, has unveiled a trailer and first images for his third feature ahead of its wide theatrical launch in Saudi cinemas on May 9.

The movie was shot in Saudi Arabia, in outskirts of the red sea port city of Jeddah and the capital of Riyadh, and like Barakah Meets Barakah, it also promises to push boundaries for its depiction of Saudi Arabia in a time of sweeping change.

Entitled Last Party In R. Desert, the dark comedy revolves around cash-driven local impresario Najm who wanders nightlife venues with his music troupe as they struggle to stay afloat amid professional strife and a scene shift in contemporary Saudi Arabia.

As the heir to Kaka Al-Qamar, one of Jeddah’s most renowned wedding singers, he finds himself entangled in a drama of burnout and obsession that takes place over one long night filled with twists,...

Sci-fi thriller Slave (Abed) by Mansour Assad and Raven Song by Mohamed Al Salman took the top prizes at the ninth edition of the Saudi Film Festival, running from May 4 to 12 in the city of Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Slave (Abed) won the festival’s Golden Palm for best film, while Raven Song clinched the jury prize.

Mansour Assad’s Slave revolves around a couple who make a movie that results in anger and backlash from society. They are given the option of staying in the present or going back in time to rectify the action that enraged their community.

Slave also clinched best screenplay for Rulan Hasan and editing for Assad.

Raven Song follows a man who is wrongly diagnosed with a brain tumor after he starts having hallucinations. The film also walked away with Golden Palms for best cinematography and actor for Asim Al-Auad.

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Saudi Arabian multi-hyphenate Hisham Fageeh (“Barakah Meets Barakah”) and young producer Sultan Tamer are launching Dh’Bab Productions, an innovative indie film and TV production shingle based in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that aims to become a bridge between both countries.

A stand-up comedian, actor, writer and producer, Fageeh (pictured above) has been a pioneer in the Saudi film and television industry that is now experiencing a boom following the 2017 removal of a religion-related ban on cinema. Fageeh in 2013 posted a satirical video on YouTube titled “No Woman, No Drive” that became the country’s most popular YouTube video and may have played a part in the movement to strike down Saudi’s ban on female motorists in late 2017. He also acted in and co-produced the Toronto-premiering “Barakah Meets Barakah,” the groundbreaking 2016 rom-com, shot in Saudi before the ban was lifted.

Fageeh more recently served as director of...

Olive Stone voiced support for Saudi Arabia at the opening Thursday of the second edition of country’s Red Sea International Film Festival, which he is attending as president of the international jury.

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The Oscar-winning director said Saudi Arabia was a country that is “misunderstood in the present world.”

“You see the changes that are coming here, the reforms. I think people who judge too harshly should come and visit this place and see for themselves,” he told the opening ceremony to cheers and applause.

Moviegoing in Saudi Arabia has come a long way since April 18, 2018, when “Black Panther” premiered to a packed crowd in a converted symphony hall in Riyadh, ending the country’s 35-year ban on public screenings prompted by an ultraconservative Islamic wave that started in the 1980s.

Cut to three-and-a-half years after the “Panther” premiere — at which men and women sat together as they watched the Marvel superhero — and when it comes to watching movies on the big screen “things have evolved on different levels,” says Carlo Vincenti, head of Italia Film, which is Disney’s distributor in the region.

Today there are 57 state-of-the-art cinema sites in 16 Saudi cities for a total of more than 500 screens. Admissions have soared from 149,000 from just two venues in 2018 to more than 13 million tickets sold at 53 different locations in 2021. Box office in 2021 was 238 million for the year, a 95 increase compared with 2020. Expectations are that Saudi...

Saudi Arabian stand up comedian, actor, writer and producer Hisham Fageeh in 2013 posted a satirical video on YouTube titled “No Woman, No Drive” that became the country’s most popular YouTube video and probably helped the movement to strike down Saudi’s ban on female motorists in late 2017. He also acted and co-produced groundbreaking Saudi rom-com “Barakah Meets Barakah.” Recently Fageeh was appointed director of the Middle East Media Initiative (Memi) at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, the training and mentorship program launched in 2018 to boost the careers of Arabic TV writers and producers that now has ties to both the Cairo Film Festival and Saudi’s nascent Red Sea fest. He spoke to Variety about what he sees as some of the sore spots in Arab TV.

What have you been up to since ‘Barakah’?

I tried my hand at working in regional television, using the momentum of that movie.

Riyadh-based Telfaz11 has been at the forefront of Saudi Arabia’s content revolution for more than a decade.

Netflix has struck a deal to produce eight feature films with Saudi entertainment group Telfaz11, in a move that marks a major breakthrough for the streaming platform’s drive to break into the Middle East.

Founded by Alaa Yousef Fadan, Ali Al Kalthami, and Ibrahim Al Khairallah around a decade ago, Riyadh-based Telfaz11 was at the forefront of Saudi Arabia’s YouTube youth content revolution in the early 2010s.

It gained international notoriety in 2013 with Hisham Fageeh’s viral videos such as No Woman,...

Riyadh-born Hisham Fageeh was working as a standup comedian, with shows in the U.S. and the U.K., when he decided to venture into filmmaking.

“We have to wear so many hats,” says Fageeh of the showbiz climate in his Saudi Arabia. “I started as a standup comedian and then I needed more gigs, so I started acting. Then I needed more scripts, so I started writing. Then I needed someone to produce my projects, so I started producing. At the end of my projects it feels like I’ve gone through war. We’re expected to produce at such a high rate. We’re always trying to run ourselves into the ground.”

The work has paid off. With his satirical take on Arabic culture, Fageeh’s 2013 web video “No Woman, No Drive” went viral and he was co-producer on Saudi Arabia’s 2016 Oscar submission for foreign-language film, “Barakah Meets Barakah.

Paul Alan Smith and Lee Rosenbaum’s ESArtists has brought on literary agent Neda Niroumand and manager Sonia Gambaro.

Niroumand brings a strong client roster to ESArtists, including writer Justin Monjo, whose movie Storm Boy, starring Geoffrey Rush, will be released in the U.S. this spring; Philip Stark; Cailan Rose; BAFTA Award-winner Alex Rose; Michele Giannusa (Dead Girls Detective Agency) and award-winning director Vincent Lannoo (Trepalium).

Niroumand was most recently a literary agent at Buchwald, and before that she successfully ran her own management and production company. She previously launched the Literary Department at Vince Cirrincione & Associates, held a position with The Gersh Agency and spent time at Kustom Entertainment and MGM.

Producer/manager Gambaro brings a strong roster of clients from her company Pollinate Entertainment, including publisher Emet Comics; Lorien McKenna; writer/director Vr...

Young Saudi comedian Hisham Fageeh in 2013 posted a satirical video on YouTube titled “No Woman, No Drive,” set to Bob Marley’s iconic song “No Woman, No Cry.” Within days, it got 13 million hits, becoming the country’s most popular YouTube video and perhaps helped the movement to strike down Saudi’s ban on female motorists in late 2017.

There is a thriving stand-up comedy scene across the Arab world. It’s being driven by YouTube, Twitter and Western formats including “Saturday Night Live” and also channels such as Viacom’s Comedy Central, which is going strong. Netflix’s first non-scripted original, now streaming, is a special on Lebanese comedian and actor Adel Karam, live from Beirut’s Casino du Libyan spouting on issues ranging from social norms and food to colonoscopies and porn.

In the special, Karam, who stars in Lebanon’s Oscar-nommed drama “The Insult,” managed to steer clear...

Saudi film-maker Mahmoud Sabbagh challenges Saudi authorities to show his film in cinemas.

Saudi Arabia has one cinema. But film-maker Mahmoud Sabbagh, whose feature debut Barakah Yoqabil Barakah (Barakah Meets Barakah) is playing in Berlin’s Forum strand, wants his film to be shown in the Islamic kingdom.

“The film will be seen [by Saudis],” says Sabbagh. “It will probably be watched through torrents, or in other Gcc countries, where Saudis go to watch films at the weekend. But I do not want to end it there. I want to take the battle of having my films shown in public. Because my whole film is about that.”

“I wanted to be part of the growing momentum for change,” he adds. “We are a society that is in a transition. I wanted to show a balanced image of the country.”

Most news emanating from the notoriously private kingdom focuses on the number of public executions, the limited...