Arab auteurs go global at Cannes after revolt chaos

CANNES, France — Riding the wave of the Arab Spring, Egyptian film star Khaled Abol Naga and his international backers have launched a revolutionary bid to bring quality Arab cinema to the global market.Kicking off at the Cannes film festival, Pacha Pictures aims to be the place to go for Arab "auteur" cinema, for which Abol Naga and his French and Lebanese partners say there is huge demand and little supply. Until now.Their initial films include "18 Days" about Egypt's revolution, which is to premiere at Cannes, "Microphone" about Alexandria's underground music scene and "Stray Bullet" about a woman facing marriage during Lebanon's civil war."18 Days" has stoked controversy at home because of the involvement of directors perceived as having propped up the regime of deposed president Hosni Mubarak, but, as they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity.Abol Naga says the idea for the company, in which he is a shareholder, came about after forming a network of independent film-makers, directors and producers called Team Cairo three years ago."Pacha Pictures was one of Team Cairo's ideas but we couldn't do it because we're just individuals, and we needed these guys, like Frederic (Sichler) who's in the industry," and Lebanese producer Georges Schoucair."So we decided to make our own Arab content sales company that would be the target for anyone in the world looking for Arab content, and since nobody's doing it, we decided to make it."But soon after the involvement of Frenchman Sichler, who has worked in the arts and entertainment business for decades and spent the last three years working in Cairo for Saudi entertainment giant Rotana, the Arab revolts began."We talked about the idea last fall, and then the revolution started," says Sichler. "I'd just left Egypt, I said my place is not there, the guys from the West have to stay home, it's their revolution. So we put everything on hold."While the Arab revolutions stalled the project, they ultimately gave it the springboard needed to turn the dream into real

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