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Gulf Arab World’s First Animated Series to Go Global
The creator of the Gulf Arab region’s first animated TV series Freej is in talks with international companies to take his show globally and work on new animation projects for children.
Mohammed Harib, founder of UAE-based Lammtara Pictures which produces Freej — meaning neighbourhood in the region’s dialect — told Reuters he was in discussions with animation and broadcasting companies in the United States and Europe.
“We are in talks with several international companies to repackage the show and take it international, do proper dubbing, and collaborate on new animation projects for kids,” he said.
Harib said he hoped to sign an agreement in the first half of this year.
The show, which has been released with English subtitles and dubbed in Italian, has gained wide popularity among local and expatriate communities across the region.
The 15-minute episodes, 15 shows each season, revolve around the lives of four old Emarati women living in a traditional neighbourhood in modern Dubai.
As their hometown goes through radical changes, the women try to come up with solutions to prevailing social issues in a satirical way.
Harib described his main character, Um Saeed, as a “proactive supergranny who can manage to advise insult a person in one sentence.”
Harib’s creative studio is a colourfully-furnished room, bustling with funky Freej merchandise and posters.
A huge portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa adorns the wall leading to the stairs, but not without an element of surprise, as a Freej character’s face replaces that of the original masterpiece.
Growing up watching American cartoons that portrayed foreign cultures, Harib found a need for an Arab animation with its own superheroes that were not Batman or Superman.
“It’s a fish out of water story,” he said. “It celebrates culture, who we are, our dialect and music … in a city brusting with capitalism.”
Dubai, one of seven members comprising the United Arab Emirates, has gone through dramatic changes over the past eight years both socially and economically, on the back of a real estate boom that eneded in late 2008.
Nationals of Dubai, famous for its man-made islands shaped like palms, an indoor ski slope in the desert and the world’s tallest building, have become alienated in their own city, representing about 10 percent of the emirate’s population.
“Some people said culture is boring but I wanted to repackage it and show that we do have our own culture and traditions,” said Harib.
With Season 4 to be aired in August, Harib is looking at elements to include from the city. He’s already included the Dubai metro and is mulling the idea of featuring the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, previously Burj Dubai.
Harib said he will focus on broadcast and was not considering creating a Freej movie at this point, citing the popularity of TV series in the Arab world as opposed to films.
Each Freej series costs 500,000 dirhams (RM461,000) to produce, which makes it one of the most expensive Arab shows to be made, Harib said, adding that funding came from merchandising, sponsors and television advertisers.
“We are not a movie society,” said Hareb. “Although we embrace Western films not everyone would go see an Arab film in the cinema.”
Reuters