Ahmad Zahra

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Thu, 19 Sep 2013 - 12:49 GMT

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Thu, 19 Sep 2013 - 12:49 GMT

Meet the producer who has managed to put Arab movies on the international filmmaking map, Among the few Arab American producers in the world. By Sherif Awad
By Sherif Awad
Among the few Arab American producers in the world, the name Ahmad Zahra stands out. Zahra has excelled in creating intercultural documentaries and features that reflect important issues coming from the heart of Arab and Muslim communities in the United States.Although he studied and practiced filmmaking in Hollywood, Zahra was never really impressed by the red-carpet scene. Instead, he has a passion for presenting real stories that inspire different worlds to come together. When Zahra first established his own company, Zahra Pictures, he chose for it the symbol of the opened hand, iconic in many cultures. Related to prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) daughter Fatima Al-Zahraa, which is similar to his family name, the hand represents the Zahra’s goal of providing a platform for celebrating cultural diversity through film. And this is exactly what he’s been trying to do since 2004. Giving rising Arab filmmakers the chance to break into the highly competitive field, Zahra has made many of them household names, including Egyptian-born Hesham Issawi of AmericanEast (2008) and Palestinian-born Rolla Selback of Making Maya (2003) and, most recently, Three Veils (2011). The latter recently won the Best Film Award at both the Portland International Women’s Film Festival and San Francisco International Women’s Film Festival. Egypt Today talked to Ahmad Zahra about the challenges of being an Arab producer in America. Kick-starting a Career Ahmad Zahra was born in Damascus, Syria where he first studied medicine then practiced it for two years. In 1996, he landed a two-year medical residency in the US, but upon his arrival there, he opted to pursue his love for cinema and switched to studying filmmaking at UCLA. Meanwhile, he also started working in the distribution departments of several Hollywood companies including 20th Century Fox. Among the producers he worked closely with was Alan Poul, whose films include Woman on Top (2000) starring Penelope Cruz. In the early 1990s, once he’d garnered enough experience in film production and distribution, Zahra decided to become a freelance producer and worked closely with the Arab and Muslim community. It was then that he was commissioned to put together documentaries for certain organizations and mosques in California. A few years later, he got his first real break. “In 2004, I got the chance to produce, write and direct my first long documentary, On Common Grounds. It was narrated by Jason Richards and focused on three groups, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, who attempted to overcome their differences by building a house together for a poor family in Mexico,” he explains. “Through my newly established company Zahra Pictures, I succeeded to sell the rights to Hallmark Television.” The Reel Deal Despite what many might think, being an Arab Muslim did not represent a difficulty for Zahra while he was establishing his own company and venturing into filmmaking. “The real difficulty was to present American films with Arab and Muslim themes and characters,” says Zahra. Not only are Arab-centric films generally box-office flops, Zahra says that even support from the small Arab-American minority is hard to come by. “Although there are 7 million Muslims in the United States, they have no interest in seeing films tackling their own issues and challenges. Simply, they don’t consume media as much as other minor communities. “The reaction of [the Arab-American community] to controversial topics [poses a problem]. [F]ilms like Three Veils or AmericanEast are so controversial for the Arab community, they are difficult to be made and to be sold,” he continues. “Three Veils is not against Islam. On the contrary, it praises it. But nobody [wants] to see it because the nature of the story and some of the characters.” Although AmericanEast was acquired by MGM Home Video after its theatrical release, Zahra sees that it is tougher for ethnic films like his own to find a market. “Arab and Muslims would be more interested in seeing a religious propaganda film like Al Resala (The Message). I think if I decided to remake it, many would love to watch it all over again.” While these issues haven’t stopped Zahra from following his passion, they have made him consider dabbling in more commercial projects to sustain it. Another avenue for financing that Zahra considers a breakthrough for independent films is crowd funding, which pools donations from fans and supporters of the project through a website page created for the film, for example, indiegogo.com. “Industry or studio money would, of course, be more available if I attract big names to sign on the dotted lines,” explains Zahra. But funding films is not a producer’s sole job, at least in the US. According to Zahra, the term ‘producer’ is understood slightly differently in the Middle East. “The word producer has a different meaning in American cinema production. While in the Arab world it means putting in the money to realize a film, a producer in the US is more involved with the development of projects with the filmmakers and seeking investors or private financiers.” Upon the completion of a movie, Zahra embraces the non-monetary side of the production process. “First, [I take the film to] the film festival circuits in order to create a buzz or to get some awards. Then, I make use of my background in distribution to get the film a go in limited releases across independent screens in the US according to Arab demographics.” Future Dreams Three Veils is Zahra’s latest creation. Written and directed by Rolla Selback, it tells the story of three Middle Eastern young women grappling with their identities in Los Angeles. Amira, a protagonist played by Syrian actress Angela Zahra, struggles throughout the film in dealing with the burden of hiding her homosexuality. Zahra faced resistance during fundraising for the movie due to this and had already knew it would be difficult to screen in Arab festivals in the Middle East. “I recently got a no from Dubai because the movie is too challenging for them. It has an intimate scene between two women, which is too explicit by Arab standards. Maybe Cairo or Damascus festivals would have shown it. But because of the current political events, both of them were canceled this year,” he says. Zahra hopes he can return to the Middle East to shoot a film. “I currently have a script, but we must wait until the political situation settles down. Because my company is ‘a one man show,’ I cannot work on more than one project at a time. I hope to partner with other Arab producers from the Middle East, but things operate there differently than here in the States. I think also we don’t have enough entities that finance films in the Middle East.”

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