Netflix eyes Middle East content development


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 15 December 2015




US streaming giant Netflix is planning producer workshops in March to develop Middle East content ahead of its launch in the region next year.



“What’s missing on the global stage is a really great scripted series about contemporary life in the Middle East,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos told delegates at the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF).

“Most depictions outside of the Middle East are either historical or portray caricatures of what life in the Middle East would be,” he said by live video link.

Netflix will run a series of workshops and pitching sessions with filmmakers and producers next March in conjunction with DIFF.

No firm launch date has been given for Netflix’s launch in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), although the company plans to launch subscription video-on-demand (VOD) services globally by the end of 2016.

Sarandos said Middle East films that he had been impressed with included Omar, Hany Abu-Assad’s 2014 Oscar-nominated Palestinian thriller, and Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian drama A Separation, which won and Oscar for best foreign language film in 2012.