Young Omanis mull over the future of film

When Mohammed al Harthy created his now-viral video called “I Am Famous,” his goal was mainly to tell an interesting story that’s based on reality.

A commentary on the social media scene sweeping not only Oman but the world, it tells the story of a family man who, in pursuit of fame, lost sight of what was important and the sanctity of family privacy and life.

The video posted about eight months ago has gained more than 300,000 views on Youtube and was shared on social media. It was the kind of videos that he wants to make and keep on making — a short film that delivers a key message that affects the community.

While Mohammed is still a media student, he is also the owner of Le Wa Lak — a company which he envisioned to be a high-quality maker of videos including advertising and corporate films for large and medium enterprises.

He has been the founder and runner of the company for five years now and from its small start, it has now seven employees with Al Harthy acting as its CEO.

In the last five years, Mohammed and his firm had produced many videos, several of them made it into Youtube. Other than the now-viral “I am Famous,” his other film “Engineer” also did well when it comes to engagement.

“We have participated in a number of festivals outside of Oman. Some of our films became entries to the Jordan International Festival, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and even the Omani Youtube Forum where they won the first place award.

Al Harthy shared that Oman is filled with young Omanis who have passion for film-making and while locally, breaking into the scene can become a challenge, these youth are looking at digital platforms to tell their stories and share their creativity.

There are also several young Omanis who have channels that are doing well in Youtube but Al Harthy pointed out that instead of developing and growing, the film producers and content creators are declining in numbers.

Film-making is a new concept in the country and one that is quite a challenge for the older generation to understand. With film-making requiring time and quite expensive to produce, a lot of the parents also see such endeavour a waste of time, energy and money.

Al Harthy is one of the many who said the lack of support and the many other challenges affect creativity with some content and film creators “focusing only on topics and content that are within the status quo.”

“Some Omanis have their dialects and this does not translate well with other people even other Arabic speakers. It’s a challenge to make the film version of Oman something relatable to other people in the Gulf. The message seemed to get lost along the way,” he said.

One media student commented that the reason why films in Oman are not growing is that film-makers and content creators in Oman had been relying on internal feedbacks instead of challenging themselves to be global producers of quality work.

“The way it works here, as long as the local community is happy with the work, the content makers stop working to refine and themselves better. They stop thinking about how they can reach an even bigger audience including other Arabs within the Arab or Gulf region,” the student commented.

This “local thinking” many young and budding producers think is becoming a barrier.

“Internet speed is also a factor and a challenge. Internet in Oman is quite expensive and most of our tools are Internet-dependent. When we edit films and download tools or watch videos on social media, this already requires a lot of money. It gets in the way of producing a good film,” Al Harthy said.

Another media and film enthusiast pointed out that support from the community is also missing. He pointed out that one will only get local support if you are already famous in social media. But if not, it is doubly hard to get good content out.

“The film industry is something that’s still new technically. It’s something that is still finding its way into full acceptance into the culture. Some parents prevent their children from wasting their time and money into film-making. And to be realistic, producing film in Oman — you do not necessarily rake in the profits,” Al Harthy said.

“Which is why I focused on conveying a message and an idea about the issue. If you focus on gaining money, you’d loose your passion to become a film-maker,” he added.

For film student Moayed Ambusaidi, Oman has still a long way to go to become big when it comes to its films.

“People love watching movies either in cinemas or through digital platforms like Youtube. But nobody understands the challenges for a content and video producer,” he said.

“If they wanted to make something, it’s quite a challenge to get support locally especially from organised institutions. They have to finance it themselves or have to knock on different private companies to get support,” he said.

“If we have a government agency dedicated to supporting the film industry, it will foster a better film producing industry,” he said.

Despite the many difficulties, both Mohammed and Moayed who both work under Le Wa Lak said they will not stop producing and making a film.

“I always envisioned myself to become the owner of the largest film production company in the Gulf,” Mohammed shared.

So regardless if they face many challenges along the way, both guys committed to advancing their skills and learning all the film-making processes one step at a time.

Angham al Matrushi