A Young Saudi's Online Gambit
Comedy Writer Launches Site for 20-Something Arabs Starved for Entertainment

By Faiza Saleh Ambah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 19, 2007

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia A desire to bring to life his favorite heroes in Islamic history initially spurred Thamer al-Sikhan toward storytelling, and he wrote for hours every day: first historic series, then drama and comedy shows, and finally, when he was in college, a screenplay.

But in a country without much of an entertainment culture, with no movie industry, no performing arts schools, where cinemas are banned and television production is in its infancy, Sikhan knocked on many doors but could not find a way to bring his stories to the screen.

Then one evening, while watching an American Internet-based series, the animated "Happy Tree Friends," it was as if "a light bulb switched on" in his head, he said. "I thought: This is what I'm going to do. I don't need anyone else. I'll produce the shows myself, on the Web."

In February, Sikhan, 27, launched the Arab Internet Channel with two comedy shows he wrote, directed and produced. Since then, more than 2 million people in Saudi Arabia and in neighboring Arab countries have watched episodes online, downloaded them to their iPods or viewed them on their cellphones.

Advances in broadband technology, which allows for quick video streaming on most of today's standard computers, have not yet made a big impact in the Arab world, where high-speed connection fees remain expensive and only about 10 percent of the population has access to the Internet.

But the relative ease of setting up a site like the Arab Internet Channel highlights the possibilities the new technology brings to a new generation of regional filmmakers.

"Short film and video are the medium of self-expression for this generation," said Canadian writer and producer Jared Lorenz. "Young Saudis, like others of their generation around the world, communicate in videos. They have grown up with cameras and software that lets them make movies and understand the basic grammar of film, just as easily as their parents could type a letter or an e-mail."

The first comedy series recounts the travails of Talal al-Fadi, an unemployed, overweight, twenty-something Saudi modeled after some of Sikhan's real-life friends. Fadi's character satirizes a generation of young adults spoiled by the flowing oil wealth of the late '70s who, unlike their parents, were raised on free education and health care, were offered government subsidies with which to buy land and homes, and even were paid a monthly allowance to attend university.

In the show, "Why Me?," Fadi spends his time smoking a water pipe with friends and complaining about life, and expecting work, money and marriage to fall into his lap.

The second comedy, "Big Trouble," is about a burglar named Hassan who is enrolled in an academy for criminals. Hassan, played by Abdullah al-Zahrani, 31, must carry out a successful kidnapping in order to graduate, but his chosen victim, the buxom and matronly Umm Shawqat, played by a man, is an amnesiac who takes him for her long lost son and tries to teach him manners and find him a wife.

Saudi Arabia has one of the world's youngest populations, with more than 50 percent of its 22 million citizens younger than 21, and Sikhan credits the channel's popularity in part to the fact that there's not much for young Saudis to do. The kingdom has no public cinemas or theaters and few sports facilities or public parks.

Young men are not allowed into most malls because of laws that ban public mingling of unrelated men and women, and many spend their free time driving their cars, eating at American fast-food restaurants, watching satellite television or going online.

Mohammad Badr, 27, a graphic designer, meets with friends at a coffee shop after work on Wednesdays to watch the latest episodes of "Why Me?" and "Big Trouble."

"What's great about it is that here are these young guys with very limited resources, and very little experience, who have done something totally new, different than the traditional Arab shows we're used to," he said.

Sikhan's biggest challenge has been financing. He sold some stocks and dug into his savings from his teaching job at a technical college and freelance work as an advertising copywriter to come up with more than $50,000 to produce the shows and pay for their hosting on U.S.-based Web servers, he said.

Sikhan and Mohammad al-Qass, 30, a Syrian actor who plays the role of the matron Shawqat, made the rounds of more than 30 businesses and advertising and media companies trying to get sponsorship for the channel.

"The media and advertising companies either want control over the content or to copyright it for themselves," said Qass, who works in magazine marketing. "And Saudi businesses are still scared of advertising on the Internet."

Filming in Saudi Arabia, where people are not used to seeing actors or cameras on the street, can be a challenge. Noisy, curious crowds form quickly, making it difficult to film, Qass said.

Sikhan chose Qass to play the female role in "Big Trouble" because of the Saudi ban on the sexes mingling in public that is based on a strict interpretation of Islam. Sikhan said he would love to see female actors playing respectable roles, but he was not willing to risk being arrested by the religious police, who enforce the ban.

In a recent street scene in which Shawqat is kidnapped, a member of Sikhan's crew parked at the head of a small side street, pretending his car had broken down, so the scene could be shot in privacy.

Qass, in makeup and bodysuit as Shawqat, waited in the car while the crew set up, he said. Cross-dressing is illegal in Saudi Arabia, and he did not want to be carted off by the religious police. But he got some male attention nonetheless.

"While I was waiting in the car smoking a cigarette, this one guy kept motioning for me to open my Bluetooth so that he could send me his number," Qass said, referring to a wireless device.

Because acting and writing opportunities are so rare in the region, Sikhan has been swamped with requests from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, from young people looking for acting roles or wanting to work together on future projects.

Sikhan said he hoped to expand the channel when he had the money because he wanted to promote indigenous work. "We are too dependent on the rest of the world," he said, sipping a latte at a coffee shop in Riyadh, the capital.

He held up his white head scarf and said, "This was made in England." Then he tugged at his traditional white thobe. "This is from Japan." He lifted up his cellphone: "And this we get from Finland. We make almost nothing here."

Sikhan's next project is a political comedy set in the near future. In it, President Bush, having just finished his second term in office, answers a president-wanted ad. He takes the job -- and becomes leader of a fictitious Arab country, Arabistan.

Qass, who will play the role of Bush, has been busy studying the president's inflections and mannerisms. "Ever since we were young, it's been one-way traffic of entertainment and drama from the West," he said. "We know America and how Americans think because of television shows and films. With this show, we want to open a window into our brains and reveal the way we view the world."