MAD Solutions & Irth Strike Pan-Arab Content Deal at Venice — SkimNews
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- Mad Solutions and Haitham Dabbour's Irth platform announced a strategic partnership on Saturday at the Venice Film Festival to jointly develop, package and support film, TV and entertainment projects from across the Arab world for regional and international markets.
- Irth, launched at the 2025 Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia, is described as the first collaborative writers' room bringing together writers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and beyond.
- Mad Solutions, Cairo-based and founded in 2010 by Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, operates specialized units including Mad World for international sales, Mad Distribution for Arab world sales, and Mad Celebrity for talent management.
- The announcement coincides with two Lido screenings handled by Mad: Egyptian rural family drama "Al Baraneya" in Venice Days (dir. Ashgan El-Hamus) and Palestinian "Conversations with the Sea" in Venice Spotlight (dir. Muayad Alayan).
- Haitham Dabbour, a bestselling Egyptian author of "Devoured by Seven Lean Cows" and "Moses Cross," has screenwriting credits including El Gouna prizewinner "Gunshot" and Berlinale Generation selection "The Tale of Ahl El Daye."
- Mad will also present its annual award at Final Cut in Venice, a platform supporting post-production for films from Africa and the Arab world.
Why it matters: The deal gives Irth's cross-border writers' room a direct commercialization path through Mad's decade-old network — regional sales via Mad Distribution, international via Mad World — pairing creative infrastructure with distribution reach that standalone writers' rooms typically lack. The Venice timing, with two Arab films already screening on the Lido, gives the launch international visibility at a flagship festival market.
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