DUBAI: Lebanese producer Mazen Laham’s Different Productions celebrated its 10th anniversary this month. The company is one of the driving forces of the television industry in the region, responsible for the creation of acclaimed shows including Netflix’s “Dubai Bling,” and “It’s OK” — a docuseries about the Lebanese pop superstar Elissa — as well as Arabic adaptations of popular franchises “Shark Tank,” “Say Yes to the Dress,” and “Chopped.”  

Laham told Arab News that shooting for the third season of “Dubai Bling” has already concluded, adding that it is “even bigger than the two previous seasons.” He confirmed that Emirati-Egyptian TV host Mahira Abdeaziz and Iraqi influencer Jwana Karim will be joining the cast, which already includes Zeina Khoury, Safa and Fahad Siddiqui, DJ Bliss, Danya Mohammed, Kris and Brianna Fade, Mona Kattan Al-Amin, Hassan Al-Amin, Loujain Adada, Ebraheem Al-Samadi, and Farhana Bodi.  

The previous two seasons both ranked in the global top 10 for non-English series on Netflix. “I believe in numbers,” Laham said. “It was (popular) globally. What I will say is that season three is a very big season.”  

While they suspected the show would be popular, Laham admitted that he and his team were not expecting it to get quite so big. “What we were aiming for is to have a good show but we never thought that it will be this successful,” he said.  

The show may be popular, but it has also attracted plenty of criticism online for its depiction of life in Dubai. Laham, though, seems unperturbed. 

“We never said that this is Dubai. From day one, we said it is about a group of friends living in Dubai,” he said. “It is not a documentary about the city. We are not saying ‘This is Dubai and this is life in Dubai,’ we only focused on a group of friends living in Dubai.” 

Discussing his company’s various Arabic-language adaptations of international shows, Laham said that they try to preserve the original concept of the show while ensuring they cater to the cultural sensitivities and preferences of the region. 

“Before getting the shows, we make sure that they fit our culture — anything that, culturally, does not pass, we do not even get it in the first place,” he said. “But, whenever we see something that could be adapted, yes, we (try to) get the rights for it. The most important thing is to keep the structure and the main spirit of the format the same.” 

Laham believes there are now two distinct audiences for shows: those for traditional television networks and those for streaming services such as Netflix, Shahid, Starzplay.  

“What is on TV does not work on a platform and vice versa, because the new generation want something fast — they want something will keep them hooked. So, it’s very challenging to make content for them,” he said.  

What Laham believes works best are docuseries such as “Dubai Bling” and “It’s OK.” 

“These are non-scripted, but they are serialized; they’re sticky,” he explained. “You want to keep on watching to follow the stories and this is when you binge watch. On TV channels, you still get to see classical standalone episodes.” 

Laham said Different Productions is currently working on an original docuseries for Starzplay called “Unstoppable.”  

“It’s a football-based reality show where children between the ages of 13 and 15 compete. There will be one winner, and the winner will hopefully play for one of the big Italian teams,” he said.  

Laham described the Saudi Arabia market as “promising,” not only due to the growing number of original productions but also because “the infrastructure, whether it’s Neom or AlUla,” is drawing in creatives from around the world. “I think it’s going to the biggest media hub out there very soon,” he added.  

“We care a lot about the viewership in Saudi Arabia because it’s the biggest market,” Laham said. “So we always look into the ratings — even if it’s not a pure Saudi show, we want our shows to be watched in Saudi Arabia.”  

DUBAI: The fourth in this year’s series focusing on contemporary Arab-American artists in honor of Arab-American Heritage Month. 

Born in Basrah to an Iraqi father and a Palestinian mother, Sama Alshaibi is an Arizona-based professor and artist who has mostly devoted her 20-year career to video, photography and performance art.  

During the Iran-Iraq war of the Eighties, Alshaibi and her family moved around the region, living in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan, before eventually settling in the American Midwest when she was 13 years old.  

“Growing up in the United States was strange. We were a ‘different’ family in Iowa and there wasn’t a lot of diversity. But I grew up in a place with nice people,” Alshaibi tells Arab News from Bellagio, Italy, where she is doing a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation.  

But she also says there were obstacles, mainly formed by major political events that impacted her. “It was challenging, because of where I’m from,” she says. 

Alshaibi’s work is largely inspired by her Arab roots. “Arts were so revered in my family,” she says. “I don’t even know if I would be making art if it wasn’t for my heritage.” It was her father, an avid photographer, who taught her to use a manual camera. She aspired to become a photojournalist herself — inspired by 20th-century African-American photographers, notably Carrie Mae Weems and Lorna Simpson, who documented Black culture in their imagery.  

Many of her images are portraits of herself wearing, for example, traditional Middle Eastern garments, referencing romanticized Orientalist portrayals of women, and in the end, challenging them.  

“I’m trying to change this idea of what you think an Arab woman is,” she explains. “I started seeing the power of communication, of taking political or social issues and using your body, your performance, your environment, to address them.”  

One of Alshaibi’s best-known series is called “Carry Over,” in which she photographed herself carrying large objects (or Orientalist props), such as a tower of container tins or a water vessel, above her head. The images poetically show a woman’s endurance and comment on a collective history, affected by colonialism and cultural loss.  

“I’ve always been interested in the notion of ‘aftermath’ — what happens after the destruction of your environment,” explains Alshaibi. “It gets you to the question of what we can’t hold onto anymore.”