El Gouna Film Festival Brings Television Into Its Industry Arm
The El Gouna Film Festival has taken its first formal step into television. Its industry arm, CineGouna, now runs a development programme for series, and the first round has just ended.
The new programme is called CineGouna Series. It is led by Mariam Naoum, and it is the festival's first development programme dedicated to television. A development programme is a scheme that helps writers shape an idea until it is ready to show to people who buy and make shows.
The inaugural lab ran for six weeks ahead of the festival and took on six projects. Writers built a series bible, the document that sets out a show's characters, setting and storyline. They also wrote a pilot, the first episode. At the festival they pitched to broadcasters, producers and directors. Variety reported the details.
The six projects come from three countries. Lebanon's Dareen Shamseddine brings Sent From Above. Saudi writer Rana Wael Matar brings Why, Soad?. Four Egyptian projects complete the list: Marketing for Beginners by Shaimaa Gohar, To the Edge by Mamdouh Salah and Muhammed Abd El-Sattar, There's Something Wrong by Marim Dagher, and Half an Hour by Mohammed Elsayed Taha.
Naoum put the market problem plainly. She said the Arab world has maybe three or four platforms that cannot cater to the whole market. That means there are more projects than those platforms can afford to buy. A platform is a streaming service or broadcaster that pays for shows.
Her answer points outward. She said the industry needs to open more markets outside the region, including for the Arab diaspora, the communities of Arab people living abroad. She also pointed to Turkey and Latin America, which have sold their series to audiences in other countries, as examples to follow.
Haitham Dabbour is the founder of Irth, a regional content development platform and collaborative writers' room. A writers' room is a team of writers who work together on a show's scripts. His work sits in the same space as the lab, which helps writers at an early stage.
For the six teams, the lab offers something specific: a finished bible and pilot, and a set of meetings with the people who could make a show. A pilot is often the step that decides whether a series goes ahead. The lab does not guarantee any of the six will be bought or made, and no buyer has been named for any project.
The programme is the festival's first move into series, so its next round will show whether the model continues. For now, six writers have a finished pilot and a room full of potential buyers to show it to.
