Ali El Arabi
- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Born in Al-Daqahliyyah, Egypt, Ali El Arabi is an Egyptian multi-talented producer and director. He grew up practicing kickboxing and won Egypt's national kickboxing championship. He became passionate about filmmaking when he moved to Cairo. In 2009, he made his first foray into the filmmaking world when he met some staff members at ZDF channel who discovered his talent.
Afterward, he traveled to Germany to study filmmaking and film production and began his career at ZDF channel where he made a number of documentaries on war zones in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan. After a while, his urge towards telling stories from his own perspective grew stronger; thus, he began freelancing and founded his production company, Ambient Light. In 2013, he began making short documentaries and used his marketing skills to sell them to a number of prominent platforms, including National Geographic.
Later, he was about to take a life-changing decision and change his career. However, destiny has its own plans. He received an invitation from the Arab League to make documentaries on refugees and send them to entities responsible for making decisions on refugee matters. Thus, he traveled to several refugee camps, the birthplace of his first documentary feature film Captains of Za'atari. It follows the story of Mahmoud and Fawzi, over the course of six years, who dream of becoming professional footballers.
Al Arabi spent 8 years working on the film, which was commercially released in November in the USA and in Egypt for a whole week. The whole box office income of the film was donated to Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. Captains of Za'atari nabbed a Special Jury Award at Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and was nominated for 15 awards. It took part in 82 international film festivals, including Sundance film festival, where it had its world premiere, and was chosen as the second-best film in the lineup of the festival. The film also had its Arab world premiere at the fifth edition of El Gouna Film Festival, where it nabbed El Gouna Golden Star for Best Documentary Film, and screened at the Official Competition of Carthage Film Festival. The official song of the film was performed by famous Egyptian rapper Wegz and hit over 6 million views on Youtube.
Recently, Ali El Arabi co-starred in Mystery and Thriller Series Welcome Home (Menwara Beahlaha), directed by prominent director Yousry Nasrallah. The series is now available on Shahid platform.
Ali is working on several regional and international projects, including the feature film The Legend of Zeineb and Noah, which is directed by Yousry Nasrallah and co-produced by El Arabi.
Afterward, he traveled to Germany to study filmmaking and film production and began his career at ZDF channel where he made a number of documentaries on war zones in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan. After a while, his urge towards telling stories from his own perspective grew stronger; thus, he began freelancing and founded his production company, Ambient Light. In 2013, he began making short documentaries and used his marketing skills to sell them to a number of prominent platforms, including National Geographic.
Later, he was about to take a life-changing decision and change his career. However, destiny has its own plans. He received an invitation from the Arab League to make documentaries on refugees and send them to entities responsible for making decisions on refugee matters. Thus, he traveled to several refugee camps, the birthplace of his first documentary feature film Captains of Za'atari. It follows the story of Mahmoud and Fawzi, over the course of six years, who dream of becoming professional footballers.
Al Arabi spent 8 years working on the film, which was commercially released in November in the USA and in Egypt for a whole week. The whole box office income of the film was donated to Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. Captains of Za'atari nabbed a Special Jury Award at Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and was nominated for 15 awards. It took part in 82 international film festivals, including Sundance film festival, where it had its world premiere, and was chosen as the second-best film in the lineup of the festival. The film also had its Arab world premiere at the fifth edition of El Gouna Film Festival, where it nabbed El Gouna Golden Star for Best Documentary Film, and screened at the Official Competition of Carthage Film Festival. The official song of the film was performed by famous Egyptian rapper Wegz and hit over 6 million views on Youtube.
Recently, Ali El Arabi co-starred in Mystery and Thriller Series Welcome Home (Menwara Beahlaha), directed by prominent director Yousry Nasrallah. The series is now available on Shahid platform.
Ali is working on several regional and international projects, including the feature film The Legend of Zeineb and Noah, which is directed by Yousry Nasrallah and co-produced by El Arabi.