Arabs making headway in Hollywood but not just as actors

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Updated 13 October 2023
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Arabs making headway in Hollywood but not just as actors

  • Directing, casting, producing, writing are key positions being taken up
  • Mico Saad and Hamzah Saman say change needed to alter how Hollywood portrays Arabs, people of different cultures

CHICAGO: More Arabs are entering the moviemaking industry, not just as actors but also as entrepreneurs, and are increasingly involved in writing, producing, casting and directing.

This is according to Egyptian-American Mico Saad, an actor and filmmaker and member of the Golden Globes Jury, and Lebanese-American Hamzah Saman, the president of his own casting company.

They told Arab News changes were necessary to push open the doors of Hollywood filmmaking which plays a major role in defining how the world sees people of different cultures.

Saad immigrated to England from Alexandria, Egypt, where he discovered a robust filmmaking industry. And then in 2018 he immigrated to America which he calls “the entertainment capital of the world,” where he carved out a career as an actor and producer  of several TV shows.

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“Back in the day, all the people wanted was to just be actors ... Nowadays, it has changed drastically because people want to do these blockbuster films. They want to write. They want to direct. They want to create,” said Saad during an interview on The Ray Hanania Radio Show sponsored by Arab News.

“There (are) more creators now than actors, which is kind of like, strange because back in the day everyone wanted to be an actor. It’s like how many producers do you know? A few. How many actors do you know? A lot. So, it’s kind of changed now thanks also to the streaming platforms which allows more people — and the film festival — allows more people to create their own stuff and talk about the stuff that really matters to them. Storytelling in the industry that we are in, it is fantastic that we have more filmmakers in the Middle East than ever. We have more filmmakers than actors. Back in the day everyone wanted to be an actor.”

Saad added: “There are many Arabs in so many ways, not just as actors. There is producers, directors, set designers, animation. We are everywhere. Arabs are everywhere in the industry but not in the way that they would want. Not the way they desire.”

Saad said the move by Arabs into filmmaking has resulted in a more effective means of countering anti-Arab stereotypes that have dominated the vast majority of Hollywood movies that have Middle East themes and Arab characters.

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“The new villain is not the Arabs. The new villain now is the virus. The virus is going to take over hopefully from the Arab kind of thing in the future. And it is going to mean getting in movies,” Saad said.

The more the public and audiences see Arabs in different roles, the more it will undermine endemic stereotyping, he said.

“There always has to be a villain whether it is Arab or non-Arabs. There always has to be a villain. And unluckily for Arabs, they were the villains for the past 20 years or more and this is because of what happened on the international stage. Which is kind of like generalized (for) everybody to be put in this category. If you are an Arab or you look like an Arab. If you are an actor and you come in here, you don’t want to be stereotyped for any political reason.”

He added: “The goal is always (for) us to entertain. But now I want to kind of do something where I get the hand of everyone next to me and we go up together. That would be the ultimate goal to make something that deletes the stereotype. ‘Hey, this is Mico, he is from Egypt. And he is fine, he is like us.’”

Saad has worked with Ricky Gervais, Anthony Hopkins, and other notable actors, and produced several short films. He was recognized with a Best Actor Award and Best Short Film Award by the Action on Film International Film Festival for “Al-Masry Life,” which he wrote, directed, and starred in alongside prominent Hollywood Egyptian-American actor Sayed Badreya. The film was described as “a gem” by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Farrelly.

Saad said that the pursuit of an acting and production career was motivated by his life in Egypt which he called “the Hollywood for Arabs.”

 

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“I was born in Alexandria, Egypt, luckily. I didn’t choose to, I was just lucky. Being born in Egypt has such an impact on you artistically, because in Egypt we have been doing movies for over 100 years. Egypt is the Hollywood of the Arabs, pretty much. We have a lot of people there who create, make music, make movies,” Saad said.

“And it’s been like there ever since. Growing up seeing all of this has kind of equipped me with a taste, equipped me with wanting to be part of the entertainment industry at such a young age and I started at a young age, as young as at 5 years old. I started with a few things like dancing for the National Team of Egypt Troupe which is very famous in the Arab world and started acting at a young age. And, it kind of (saw) love, kind of growing in me day by day. I am very lucky to experience such a thing.”

Filmmaking has expanded from Egypt into many Arab countries over the past century including Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, Saad noted.

 

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“This is what we need. We need more creators. Instead of sitting here and criticizing Hollywood and criticizing people for not: ‘Oh why are you not representing me right?’ Because he doesn’t know. Why don’t I do, make something, that represents me right. And then if it is good, and if it is kind of in the entertaining way, they will take it. Everybody will take it. It’s kind of, I urge everybody instead of complaining about not being represented right, do your own thing ... We need more creators,” Saad said.

Meanwhile Saman, who began acting in 2006, shifted to casting and launched a company Arab American Casting. He is a member of the prestigious Casting Society of America.

Born in Beirut, Saman was young when he lost his father during one of the wars in Lebanon. He was raised by a grandmother who loved to watch soap operas and movies, which influenced him to pursue acting. 

Saman said he eventually recognized that there were not enough Arab actors in Hollywood and he shifted his focus to casting. He initially worked in the LA Casting Unit on the documentary “He Named Me Malala” (2015) with the Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim. He also helped with casting for the film “Argo” (2012).

Saman has been working to change the perception of Arab and Middle Eastern artists in Hollywood through his work, including casting Malek Rahbani in a leading role in the 2022 film “Jacir” alongside Lorraine Bracco and Darius Tutwiler. The film tells the story of a poor Syrian refugee who pursues the American dream on the streets of Memphis.

As a casting director, Saman has worked on more than 40 feature, and short films, commercials, and television shows. His website is ArabActors.com.

Saad and Saman made the comments during appearances on The Ray Hanania Radio Show broadcast Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, on the US Arab Radio Network sponsored by Arab News newspaper.

You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.


Iran’s Internet blackout leaves public in dark, creates uneven picture of war with Israel

Updated 20 June 2025
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Iran’s Internet blackout leaves public in dark, creates uneven picture of war with Israel

  • Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings
  • Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare

DUBAI: As the war between Israel and Iran hits the one-week mark, Iranians have spent nearly half of the conflict in a near-communication blackout, unable to connect not only with the outside world but also with their neighbors and loved ones across the country.
Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings through their Persian-language online channels. When the missiles land, disconnected phone and web services mean not knowing for hours or days if their family or friends are among the victims. That’s left many scrambling on various social media apps to see what’s happening — again, only a glimpse of life able to reach the Internet in a nation of over 80 million people.
Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare for a nation all-too familiar with state information controls and targeted Internet shutdowns during protests and unrest.
“The Iranian regime controls the information sphere really, really tightly,” Marwa Fatafta, the Berlin-based policy and advocacy director for digital rights group Access Now, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We know why the Iranian regime shuts down. It wants to control information. So their goal is quite clear.”
War with Israel tightens information space
But this time, it’s happening during a deadly conflict that erupted on June 13 with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based group called Human Rights Activists.
Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli military estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel’s multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds others wounded. Guidance from Israeli authorities, as well as round-the-clock news broadcasts, flows freely and consistently to Israeli citizens, creating in the last seven days an uneven picture of the death and destruction brought by the war.
The Iranian government contended Friday that it was Israel who was “waging a war on truth and human conscience.” In a post on X, a social media platform blocked for many of its citizens, Iran’s Foreign Ministry asserted Israel banned foreign media from covering missile strikes.
The statement added that Iran would organize “global press tours to expose Israel’s war crimes” in the country. Iran is one of the world’s top jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and in the best of times, reporters face strict restrictions.
Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported on Friday that Iran had been disconnected from the global Internet for 36 hours, with its live metrics showing that national connectivity remained at only a few percentage points of normal levels. The group said a handful of users have been able to maintain connectivity through virtual private networks.
Few avenues exist to get information
Those lucky few have become lifelines for Iranians left in the dark. In recent days, those who have gained access to mobile Internet for a limited time describe using that fleeting opportunity to make calls on behalf of others, checking in on elderly parents and grandparents, and locating those who have fled Tehran.
The only access to information Iranians do have is limited to websites in the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, Iran’s state-run television and radio stations offer irregular updates on what’s happening inside the country, instead focusing their time on the damage wrought by their strikes on Israel.
The lack of information going in or out of Iran is stunning, considering that the advancement of technology in recent decades has only brought far-flung conflicts in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere directly to a person’s phone anywhere in the world.
That direct line has been seen by experts as a powerful tool to shift public opinion about any ongoing conflict and potentially force the international community to take a side. It has also turned into real action from world leaders under public and online pressure to act or use their power to bring an end to the fighting.
But Mehdi Yahyanejad, a key figure in promoting Internet freedom in Iran, said that the Islamic Republic is seeking to “purport an image” of strength, one that depicts only the narrative that Israel is being destroyed by sophisticated Iranian weapons that include ballistic missiles with multiple warheads.
“I think most likely they’re just afraid of the Internet getting used to cause mass unrest in the next phase of whatever is happening,” Yahayanejad said. “I mean, some of it could be, of course, planned by the Israelis through their agents on the ground, and some of this could be just a spontaneous unrest by the population once they figure out that the Iranian government is badly weakened.


BBC threatens legal action against AI startup Perplexity over content scraping

Updated 20 June 2025
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BBC threatens legal action against AI startup Perplexity over content scraping

  • Perplexity has faced accusations from media organizations, including Forbes and Wired, for plagiarizing their content

LONDON: The BBC has threatened legal action against Perplexity, accusing the AI startup of training its “default AI model” using BBC content, the Financial Times reported on Friday, making the British broadcaster the latest news organisation to accuse the AI firm of content scraping.

The BBC may seek an injunction unless Perplexity stops scraping its content, deletes existing copies used to train its AI systems, and submits “a proposal for financial compensation” for the alleged misuse of its intellectual property, FT said, citing a letter sent to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.

The broadcaster confirmed the FT report on Friday.

Perplexity has faced accusations from media organizations, including Forbes and Wired, for plagiarizing their content but has since launched a revenue-sharing program to address publisher concerns.

Last October, the New York Times sent it a “cease and desist” notice, demanding the firm stop using the newspaper’s content for generative AI purposes.

Since the introduction of ChatGPT, publishers have raised alarms about chatbots that comb the internet to find information and create paragraph summaries for users.

The BBC said that parts of its content had been reproduced verbatim by Perplexity and that links to the BBC website have appeared in search results, according to the FT report.

Perplexity called the BBC’s claims “manipulative and opportunistic” in a statement to Reuters, adding that the broadcaster had “a fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law.”

Perplexity provides information by searching the internet, similar to ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, and is backed by Amazon.com (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos, AI giant Nvidia (NVDA.O), and Japan’s SoftBank Group (9984.T).

The startup is in advanced talks to raise $500 million in a funding round that would value it at $14 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.


Streaming platform Deezer starts flagging AI-generated music

Updated 20 June 2025
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Streaming platform Deezer starts flagging AI-generated music

  • French streaming service Deezer is now alerting users when they come across music identified as completely generated by artificial intelligence, the company told AFP on Friday

PARIS: French streaming service Deezer is now alerting users when they come across music identified as completely generated by artificial intelligence, the company told AFP on Friday in what it called a global first.
The announcement by chief executive Alexis Lanternier follows repeated statements from the platform that a torrent of AI-generated tracks is being uploaded daily — a challenge Deezer shares with other streaming services including Swedish heavyweight Spotify.
Deezer said in January that it was receiving uploads of 10,000 AI tracks a day, doubling to over 20,000 in an April statement — or around 18 percent of all music added to the platform.
The company “wants to make sure that royalties supposed to go to artists aren’t being taken away” by tracks generated from a brief text prompt typed into a music generator like Suno or Udio, Lanternier said.
AI tracks are not being removed from Deezer’s library, but instead are demonetised to avoid unfairly reducing human musicians’ royalties.
Albums containing tracks suspected of being created in this way are now flagged with a notice reading “content generated by AI,” a move Deezer says is a global first for a streaming service.
Lanternier said Deezer’s home-grown detection tool was able to spot markers of AI provenance with 98 percent accuracy.
“An audio signal is an extremely complex bundle of information. When AI algorithms generate a new song, there are little sounds that only they make which give them away... that we’re able to spot,” he said.
“It’s not audible to the human ear, but it’s visible in the audio signal.”
With 9.7 million subscribers worldwide, most of them in France, Deezer is a relative minnow compared to Spotify, which has 268 million.
The Swedish firm in January signed a deal supposed to better remunerate artists and other rights holders with the world’s biggest label, Universal Music Group.
But Spotify has not taken the same path as Deezer of demonetising AI content.
It has pointed to the lack of a clear definition for completely AI-generated audio, as well as any legal framework setting it apart from human-created works.


Israeli police prevent media from reporting at scene of Soroka hospital strike

Updated 19 June 2025
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Israeli police prevent media from reporting at scene of Soroka hospital strike

  • Officers block journalists from filming at medical center hit by Iranian missile on Thursday, and demand they hand over equipment
  • The move is said to the result of directives issued by Israel’s minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir
  • Amid growing concerns about restrictions on reporting, advocates for freedom of the press accuse Israeli authorities of censorship

LONDON: Israeli police reportedly prevented journalists from filming at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, which suffered “extensive damage” from an Iranian missile strike on Thursday.

Officers were said to have cited security concerns as the reason, on the grounds that footage from the scene revealed “precise locations” and had been broadcast by Al Jazeera, a media outlet banned in Israel since May 2024 over its coverage of the war in Gaza.

The Times of Israel said police confronted one cameraman at the hospital site and demanded he hand over his equipment. The journalist reportedly refused and told officers: “They are seeing you on CNN, seeing you on BBC, seeing you all over the world, so calm down for a second.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for the attack in which the hospital was damaged, saying it had targeted nearby Israeli military and intelligence sites. The Israeli military denied having any facilities in the area. Footage authenticated by BBC Verify suggested the medical complex was hit by a direct strike.

Israeli police confirmed on Thursday that they ordered a halt to foreign media coverage at Soroka and other affected locations for reasons of national security. They added that they were actively looking for media workers filming at the sites.

“Israel Police units were dispatched to halt the broadcasts, including those of news agencies through which Al Jazeera was airing illegal transmissions,” the force said.

During a visit to the hospital site on Thursday, Israel’s minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said: “This morning in Tel Aviv, there was an incident where equipment was confiscated. There is a clear policy: Al Jazeera endangers state security.”

The crackdown on the media comes amid growing concerns among advocates for freedom of the press. Several journalists and other industry professionals have reported obstruction by authorities, including confiscation of equipment. Many accuse Israeli officials of censorship. It follows policy directives from far-right minister Ben-Gvir, in coordination with Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, to “maintain the safety and security of citizens.”

Sources close to Ben-Gvir said he has instructed Israel’s Shin Bet security agency and the police to step up action against any foreign media outlets or civilians suspected of celebrating the Iranian missile attacks.

“There will be zero tolerance for expressions of joy over attacks on Israel,” Ben-Gvir said this week.

Tensions in the region have risen sharply since coordinated strikes by Israeli authorities against Iranian military and nuclear sites began on June 13. Tehran has retaliated with missile strikes on Israeli targets, some of which have hit civilian buildings.

After a visit to the Soroka hospital site on Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz escalated the rhetoric further, declaring that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist.”

Iranian authorities say at least 639 people have been killed and 1,329 wounded since the fighting began a week ago. The death toll in Israel stands at 24, according to officials in the country.


Trump administration tightens social media vetting for foreign students

Updated 21 June 2025
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Trump administration tightens social media vetting for foreign students

  • US will now impose much stricter social media vetting for visa applicants, requiring them to make social media profiles public to check for anti-American content
  • Washington told US missions abroad they can resume visa processing for students, after appointments were suspended in May

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday ordered the resumption of student visa appointments but will significantly tighten its social media vetting in a bid to identify any applicants who may be hostile toward the United States, according to an internal State Department cable reviewed by Reuters.
US consular officers are now required to conduct a “comprehensive and thorough vetting” of all student and exchange visitor applicants to identify those who “bear hostile attitudes toward our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles,” said the cable, which was dated June 18 and sent to US missions on Wednesday.
On May 27, the Trump administration ordered its missions abroad to stop scheduling new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants, saying the State Department was set to expand social media vetting of foreign students.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said updated guidance would be released once a review was completed.
The June 18 dated cable, which was sent by Rubio and sent to all US diplomatic missions, directed officers to look for “applicants who demonstrate a history of political activism, especially when it is associated with violence or with the views and activities described above, you must consider the likelihood they would continue such activity in the United States.”
The cable, which was first reported by Free Press, also authorized the consular officers to ask the applicants to make all of their social media accounts public.
“Remind the applicant that limited access to....online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity,” the cable said.
The move follows the administration’s enhanced vetting measures last month for visa applicants looking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose, in what a separate State Department cable said would serve as a pilot program for wider expanded screening.

ONLINE PRESENCE
The new vetting process should include a review of the applicant’s entire online presence and not just social media activity, the cable said, urging the officers to use any “appropriate search engines or other online resources.”
During the vetting, the directive asks officers to look for any potentially derogatory information about the applicant.
“For example, during an online presence search, you might discover on social media that an applicant endorsed Hamas or its activities,” the cable says, adding that may be a reason for ineligibility.
Rubio, Trump’s top diplomat and national security adviser, has said he has revoked the visas of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, including students, because they got involved in activities that he said went against US foreign policy priorities.
Those activities include support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza.
A Tufts University student from Turkiye was held for over six weeks in an immigration detention center in Louisiana after co-writing an opinion piece criticizing her school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza. She was released from custody after a federal judge granted her bail.
Trump’s critics have said the administration’s actions are an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

FEWER APPOINTMENTS?
While the new directive allows posts to resume scheduling for student and exchange visa applicants, it is warning the officers that there may have to be fewer appointments due to the demands of more extensive vetting.
“Posts should consider overall scheduling volume and the resource demands of appropriate vetting; posts might need to schedule fewer FMJ cases than they did previously,” the cable said, referring to the relevant visa types.
The directive has also asked posts to prioritize among expedited visa appointments of foreign-born physicians participating in a medical program through exchange visas, as well as student applicants looking to study in a US university where international students constitute less than 15 percent of the total.
At Harvard, the oldest and wealthiest US university on which the administration has launched a multifront attack by freezing its billions of dollars of grants and other funding, foreign students last year made up about 27 percent of the total student population.
The cable is asking the overseas posts to implement these vetting procedures within five business days.