Dubai Airport Free Zone: Beyond the Economic Crisis

November 22, 2008 – 1:46 pm

In an exclusive interview with ArabComment, Ibrahim Ahli, Director of Marketing at Dubai Airport Free Zone (DAFZ), explains why Dubai is the only place to set up operations in the region, how expansion plans look beyond the UAE, and why British companies are so valued.

ArabComment: How do you think that Dubai will perform during the global financial crisis, and how will your operations be affected?

Ahli: Actually our operations have not been affected at all by the financial crisis in the world because we still have companies establishing at the Dubai Airport Free Zone and asking for office spaces for the region. I’ll give you an example: we have now more companies from Japan, who would like to establish their offices in Dubai, and our location is an ideal location for them because they want to shift their operations of selling their products to the United States, and shifting it to other new markets, so Middle East, Russia, India are new markets for the Japanese companies.

ArabComment: Would you say that you’re offering a respite from the current financial crisis and that Dubai is a kind of a safe haven? Read More »

By Oliver Pearce | Posted in business world, dubai | Comments (0)

Business News: Angel Investing in the Middle East

April 17, 2008 – 8:04 am

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – On May 4th and 5th of this year, the Arab Business Angels Network will host an entrepreneurs/investors workshop and matchmaking event at the Dubai International Financial Center.

The event is being described as a chance to explore both entrepreneurship strategies and opportunities with up-and-coming businesses in the region, with speakers ranging from Anthony Clarke of GLE Growth Capital to Michael Blakey of Avonmore Developments Ltd. A key part of the happening will involve the actual entrepreneur pitches.

Angel investing is a relatively new phenomenon in the Middle East, and it will be fascinating to see whether or not the concept takes off.

Certainly Dubai, with its present position as the financial capital of the region, appears to be the prime location for such an event.

By Feature Writer | Posted in business world, dubai | Comments (0)

Notes from the Dubai International Film Festival: Things We Lost in the Fire

December 18, 2007 – 8:39 am

This is our final article on DIFF this year. Related stories are here and here.

As the festival wound down, I found myself needing an injection of Hollywood, and Susanne Bier’s “Things We Lost in the Fire” was the ticket. Well, maybe. Susanne Bier is actually Danish, and this movie is somewhat unconventional. I’m not sure if it’s going to get a wide release in the Middle East, but I’m not holding my breath.

The one consistently terrific thing about this film is Benicio Del Toro and his brand of awesome. I’m not exactly sure how he manages to take the familiar role of a recovering heroin addict and transform it into something this charming and unpretentious, but I like to think it has something to do with being charming and unpretentious in real life. Either way, this is one performance any self-respecting Del Toro fangirl or fanboy cannot possibly miss out on, no matter where you are.

The rest of the movie oscillates between genuinely grounded, thoughtful material and occasionally coma-inducing melodrama. Halle Berry’s turn as shell-shocked widow Audrey is solid, but her obligatory moment of meltdown and surrender felt as thought it could have come off a check-list. While Del Toro’s heroin withdrawal scene has similar overtones, his inventive facial contortions alone create something original to watch.

David Duchovny, the dead husband who is the link between Berry and Del Toro’s characters, has some potential, but he disappears halfway into the film. The story is fragmented (much like a grieving person’s mind – which I thought to be a nice touch overall), and Duchovny’s character is seen in flashbacks. But the flashbacks just stop all of a sudden, and the film is the poorer for it. We understand that Brian was a righteous dude unjustly taken from his family in the prime of his life, but aside from the great dynamic he has with his drug addict friend, we don’t really get to know him as a human being.

The deadpan John Carroll Lynch is a source of comic relief as a weird but good-natured neighbor, but it’s a bad sign when you realize his character is actually more likeable than Brian’s.

Bier is drawing a fascinating parallel between addiction and grief however, and she does succeed in raising serious questions about the way human beings deal with both phenomena. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in arts and literature, dubai, entertainment | Comments (0)

Notes from the Dubai International Film Festival: Captain Abu Raed

December 15, 2007 – 4:23 pm

This article is part of a series on films at DIFF 2007.

Well, the time has come to separate the best from the rest. For me, the festival peaked with the world premiere of “Captain Abu Raed” – the first Jordanian feature film in a rather long number of years.

Let me tell you, all those decades upon decades were certainly worth the wait.

Director, writer, and producer Amin Matalqa described this film as a “fable,” which is probably as close as one can get to its essence without giving too much away. The hero of the story, portrayed by veteran Nadim Sawalha (you’ve seen him everywhere from “Syriana” to “The Nativity Story” as of late), is a janitor who gets mistaken for an airline pilot on account of a hat fished out of the trash in Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport.

Abu Raed is an older man who leads a quiet life, having conversations with his dead wife’s portrait and spending his evenings with only a cup of tea for company. This is a man who had dreams once; you can still see something of them in his kind, keen gaze, alongside past calamities and defeats, all equally ground down by the thievish passage of time.

It is the exicted attention of his humble neighborhood’s children that inspires Abu Raed to assume the role of storyteller and sage; as he recounts tales of the fictional adventures of the man he might have been, we discover that the man he is is not a whole lot different. Abu Raed can still be a hero, janitor’s uniform and all.

Thanks to the editing of obscenely young Laith Majali (who is also one of the producers) and the brilliant cinematography of Reinhart Peschke, the movie has a lush, gorgeous look: the light alternates between laving like honey and casting inky shadows on faces and streets. The city of Amman exists as a separate character here, a living landscape transversed with human lives.

This is a family-friendly (I hate that horrible adjective, but there it is) film that nevertheless deals with the darker side of life. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in arts and literature, dubai, entertainment, jordan | Comments (8)

Notes from the Dubai International Film Festival: The Battle for Haditha

December 13, 2007 – 7:41 am

This article is part of a series on various films at DIFF 2007.

Nick Broomfield’s “The Battle for Haditha” has not yet gotten enough press. In some ways, this is understandable. Despite the explosive subject matter, this is a low-key film. There are no big-name actors, no enormous budget, and, most importantly, the picture’s stylistic elements tend toward a stark, bare-boned simplicity. Nevertheless, this is a film to see.

Broomfield cast many amateurs for key roles, among them some ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees, and this is both good and bad. There is a definite air of authenticity surrounding the film, yet the acting occasionally appears forced. Some of the dialogue struck me as contrived- although this may have something to do with the subtitles. I do not speak Arabic, but having been accompanied by an Arabic speaker at the screening, I discovered that the subtitles are not as good as they could have been.

This movie is earnest, but, in some scenes, it also comes across as didactic. Do we really need to see the chief insurgent character, a disgruntled former member of the Iraqi army, spelling out the message with lines such as: “The Americans created the insurgency by dis-banding the army”? Does the chief insurgent furthermore have to opine stiffly on the future of Iraq, noting (in a manner that suggests that he is channeling Fukuyama) the bleak possibility of the country inheriting a new leader, someone who will be a helluva lot worse than Saddam?

Yet in spite of a few missteps, this is a haunting picture. I can’t get it out of my head, and I probably won’t for a long time. Broomfield captures the comings and goings of the residents of Haditha, people whose lives are about to be shattered, with intimacy and grace. I was floored by the character of Rashied (Duraid A. Ghaieb), a young man besotted with his pregnant wife (Yasmine Hanani – who attended the screening alongside the director, and ex-Marine actors Elliot Ruiz and Eric Mehalacopoulos), keenly aware of the growing danger of staying with his family in Haditha, and yet unable to do much about it.

Alongside U.S. Marines and Iraqi civilians, Broomfield dares to portray the members of the Iraqi insurgency as human beings. These people are not just fundamentalist foreigners, they are also ordinary locals who are infuriated with what has happened to their country. This simple truth is about as inconvenient as anything Al Gore can come up with, and is bound to make American audiences squirm in their seats. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in arts and literature, dubai, entertainment, iraq, terrorism | Comments (3)

The Evil-Doers of Comedy

December 2, 2007 – 8:38 am

Recently, I was lucky enough to get the chance to speak with Ahmed Ahmed, Aron Kader, and Maz Jobrani of the world-famous Axis of Evil Comedy Tour in Dubai. And by “speak with,” I mean interrupting their lunch and rather blatantly stealing Maz Jobrani’s chair (I suppose this is my chance to apologize – and I do, I really do).

Natalia: I see that you guys aren’t stabbing me with a fork for having to do this during your meal, and I thank you for that. How do you find Dubai?

Aron: I love it. It’s very, very opulent. My relatives in Jerusalem live humbly – no dirt floors or anything, but a very simple life, and this is a big contrast.

Maz: People here get our references.

Ahmed: Dubai is very modern. It’s a beacon of light, in this sense.

Maz: It’s not exactly perfect. But there are problems everywhere you go, right?

Natalia: So, I’ve done my research or so I hope. I think I can see what you guys have in common. The Middle Eastern heritage, the desire to challenge stereotypes, the dashing good looks. How are you different?

Aron: Different fashion sense. Ahmed is the one who wears the hats…

Maz: Are you writing this down? Because he’s joking.

Natalia: [momentarily feels like a dingbat] Let’s talk about racism against people of Middle Eastern origin in the United States.

Ahmed: It’s huge. There’s nothing funny about being Middle Eastern in America right now. I’ve been called a “sand-nigger,” etc. But comedy about stereotypes is like therapy, in that sense.

Maz: I think American co-exist well with each other, all things considered, but there are still issues of prejudice you can’t escape, which is why laughing with people is important, which is why this tour is important. It shatters stereotypes. Someone once told me: “I had no idea that you people even laughed.” We are portrayed as completely humourless and that’s not even the worst of it. You know, my mother has been told, “go back to your country, bitch.” She had an accent, and people with accents seem threatening. This is beside all the stuff you would get at school, as a kid. Kids are brutal. But there are always people who have it worse than you. Like the gas station attendants, think about the crap they get on a daily basis.

Ahmed: American racists are lazy too. Someone started targeting Sikhs after 9/11, because of the turbans. Sikhs aren’t even Muslim. It’s like the Joe DeRosa joke about American people thinking that Egypt has oil. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in current affairs, dubai, entertainment, humor | Comments (6)

Stranger’s Snapshots: Dubai

August 8, 2007 – 12:17 pm

A smashing Halloween costume usually requires a decent investment. But spreading terror can be cheap – if you’re a female in semi-tight clothing who happens to step into an elevator full of male Saudi adolescents. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in dubai, society, travel | Comments (0)