All roads, don't lead to victory!

Even the great directors are sitting idling on their hands, watching as the gap between the Arabic movie industry and the rest of the world keeps growing more and more to the point it's might already be too late to keep up

What ever happened to the great story tellers of the east? The 1001 nights of Shahrazad, the genie of the lamp, the flying carpet, the cap of invisibility and the great Aladdin? Even our great stories have barely barely made it to child play compared to all the technology and special effects of the new movie industry.

Even the new comers to the field have already surpassed the Arabic movie industry by leagues. From Korean, to Chinese to eastern European and even Persian. Even when battling on our comfort zone of romantic, melodrama, and drama. We appear to be losing miserably to everyone else.

Oscars are still far fetched, And we're barely making presence at Cannes film festival.

The Palestinian movie industry is still making baby steps. The Jordanian is worse, the whole billions of the gulf states didn't make a handful of movies that no one has ever heard of. And the Western Arab countries are consumed in their own french influenced production. And it's just as bad in Syria and Lebanon. One disaster after the other.

The only industry that has a chance is the Egyptian industry. But it's just not progressing. In fact in many ways we're slipping back. We're slipping back so fast there doesn't even seem to be light at the end of the tunnel

Everything we seem to produce is designed for local consumption. Isn't suitable in anyway to the international crowds. While we're pumping billions into the cheap trashy satellite channels. While completely neglecting the fact that a single hit movie will make more money than what a ton of the satellite channels would do in a decade.

If you add to all of that the fact that a good movie to positively portray the Arab world or to polish a national or a historical figure. That would do the whole Arab image a great good.

But it appears that it's a far fetched dream! And we're not only doomed to lose militarily, scientifically and technologically but also socially, culturally and artistically. I guess failure begets more failure. And being behind on so many things, means that we will continue to lose on other fronts as well. The only areas we're still excelling is literature and poetry! I hope we continue to gain some ground their

The melodramatic scene is alive and well. I see it in the eyes of anyone who enters my office and sees couple of the Ramadani series like King Farouq, Nimer Ibn El Odwan. The production quality is high. And the content is amazing. But When we hit the silver screen it turns trivial and cheap! As for romance and fantasy, then forget it completely. It doesn't match up with the golden black and white oldies from the 1940's

Is there hope for our movie industry? I seriously fear for it's future