ALI EL ARABY

Jewellery, Ali’s own. Watch by Audemars Piguet. Deconstructed wool blazer by Feng Chen Wang

When asked whether he would describe himself as an Egyptian filmmaker, Ali El Araby responds simply, “I am a filmmaker”. He is indeed a born and raised Egyptian, but having produced films across Asia and Africa, his portfolio demonstrates a commitment to telling stories across the Arabic-speaking world and beyond: his upcoming Indian-Qatari-Egyptian production 52 Blue being a prime example.

Words by Christiana Boules.

Photographed by Edwin S Freyer. Styled by Alton Hetariki. Grooming by Hesham Moss. Production by AALTO. Executive Producer, Alex Aalto. Producer and Local PR, Fatma Elsharkawy. Fashion Project Manager, Jack So. Producers assisted by Hadeer Mekky. Socials by Boram Lee. Ali assistant, Freska. Story shot at Sofitel Cairo Nile El Gezirah.

Beige cotton shirt and silk tie by AMI Paris. Glasses, jewellery and watch Ali's own

In 2021, he made his directorial debut at Sundance with the documentary Captains of Zaatari, which was later longlisted for the 2022 Academy Awards. Emblematic of his organic approach to work, Captains of Zaatari was developed by happenstance during his time as a war reporter. Mahmoud and Fawzi, two Syrian teenagers living in the Jordanian refugee camp of Zaatari, requested that Ali film them playing football, in the simple hope that they might be seen. Humouring them, Ali intended to get only a few minutes’ footage, but in those initial moments, he realised that film could achieve what journalism could not.

Refugees as numbers and statistics, no matter how accurate, could not be truthful, he believes. Frustrated by the dispassionate sympathies of news viewers abroad, he concluded that journalism was incapable of bringing about real change. “If you don’t feel it, people will not change. After Captains of Zaatari, journalists started to see the kids as sons and brothers, not refugees.” 

Changing course from his undergraduate education of business studies, Ali began reporting for the German channel ZDF when a conversation with his future boss led to a job interview. “We were speaking about how I wished the world would change and how I wished to change the world.” Taking him to Libya, Syria and Iraq, his work as a reporter left him with a sense of guilt, which he eventually transformed into a measure of the change he hoped for. Thanks to the success of Captains of Zaatari, Mahmoud and Fawzi were named youth advocates for the Qatari World Cup’s Generation Amazing programme, opening them up to opportunities beyond the camp. 

His first scripted feature, 52 Blue, also uses football to frame a young man’s adventure. An emerging trademark for the director, the film seamlessly blends real-world footage and scripted scenes. “It's fun to follow an event live. You’re not making everything move for the camera; the camera moves for everything.” As for why a proud Egyptian would title himself ‘filmmaker’ minus the ‘Egyptian’, the story behind 52 Blue provides a clue. “I went to India so that I could talk about me and my father with freedom,” he shares.

Beige cotton shirt and silk tie by AMI Paris

52 Blue’s story about a boy with sporting aspirations and a disapproving father is a story not unlike his own, as for most of his life, Ali harboured his own boxing ambitions. But as a son who defied paternal expectations and successfully ventured on his own path, he didn’t feel “courageous enough” to make the film in Egypt at the time. It’s clear that the director finds safety in the anonymous retellings of his own stories. The use of a personal template to frame a new cultural scene certainly offers a humanising lens with which to view others. Still, it also offers him his own internal sanctuary. 

Ali’s ethos of identifying universal themes is not just sentiment- it’s good business. “I have to find the international language in my movie to reach audiences around the world.” For him, those languages are sports and music. Currently writing an English-language boxing film, he is also, at last, filming his first Egyptian production. With the working title One String, the feature stars the global Egyptian rapper, Wegz, alongside friend of the magazine, Asser Yassin, with co-stars Tara Emad and Mayan El Sayed. 

Only in the last two years has the filmmaker seen home as fertile ground for his projects. Establishing his production company, Ambient Light Film, he achieved particular success co-producing two feature films. Goodbye Julia made history as the first Sudanese film to be showcased at Cannes in 2023, and went on to win the festival’s Freedom Prize; and Arze, a Lebanese production which received critical acclaim at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. Experience combined with a global business outlook means he now feels empowered to face the challenges of filmmaking in Egypt, navigating between the indulgence of arthouse and the enrichment of commercial cinema.

Glasses and jewellery, Ali’s own. Watch by Audemars Piguet. Wool blazer and trousers, both by Home Plisse Issey Miyake

Arthouse or commercial, Ali’s overarching consideration is whether Ambient Light’s collective portfolio appeals widely. To sustain the different generations of filmmakers, production companies in Egypt require additional financial resilience if they are to operate independently of their sponsors' needs, upon whom they rely in the absence of any public grants. Regardless, filmmakers know that they cannot exclusively march to the beat of their own drum. Stories of productions halted at the last minute are a cautionary tale about what happens when creative ambition outpaces cultural context. 

Twice referring to a project yet to be made as the “death” of a film, a producer’s responsibility includes saving films from their own unmaking, according to Ali. “With ambient light, I’m trying to support filmmakers to finish what they start. A lot of filmmakers, they get stuck, for five years, ten years. And if they die, if these movies die, the industry will die.”

One of his latest co-productions, Life after Siham, premiered at Cannes earlier this year. Having gained recognition across the festival scene, the film most recently went on to receive further distinction at the El Gouna Film Festival, winning Best Arab Documentary last month. Ali knew the director, Namir Abdel Messeeh, long before he realised his friend was a filmmaker – once again inexplicably gravitating towards the right person at the right time. But in the spirit of balance, he pays his gift forward in a similarly offhand fashion, even when recruiting. On his approach to hiring, he expands — “I don't care about experience. In filmmaking, the experience from five years ago is old school. Now you can't use it. But how's your passion?”

Perhaps his flair for connecting with others is really grounded in an appreciation for the quotidian. Of more interest to him than fiction, he imagines a backstory for the person sitting next to him on a train, and considers it enough to create a film. “If I see a woman sitting with her daughter, with a tan that doesn’t cover her wrist, I understand she just sold her gold to buy something for her daughter – this, I can believe, and I can write my story.”

Talking about his father, Ali unearthed the beginnings of his own story. A “conservative” man, his father demanded strict focus on school studies. TV was prohibited unless he finished his homework, so he rushed through the work, and with any luck, he would catch the final third of the nightly broadcast film. Hurrying to his room to fill in the blanks, he penned his own version of the story from start to end. “I did it to enjoy the film, to not be sad that I missed most of it.” At the beginning of his interview, he surmised he was 20 years old when he first wanted to become a filmmaker. But it seems, after all, that the storyteller came into being long before then. 

This interview is inside The CINEMA Issue 15. Purchase your copy here.

Glasses and trousers, Ali’s own. Wool striped blouson jacket, cotton shirt and silk tie, all by AMI Paris