Tarak-Ben-Ammar-Keynote-speech-Circle-Conference-13-October-2010

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Tarak Ben Ammar

Keynote Speech, The Circle Conference, Abu Dhabi

October 13th

2010

Your Highness, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

I am honoured to be here today to open the fourth Abu Dhabi Circle Conference, and

particularly proud to be the first Arab to do so. God Willing in the years to come, and with

the wise, generous support of leaders such as Sheikh Khalifa and Crown Prince Sheikh

Mohammed in Abu Dhabi, there will be many more Arab men and women speaking around

the world about their own achievements in the media and their ability to interconnect East

and West.

Given the increasingly globalised age we now live in, there has rarely been a time when

dialogue and the means of expression between people and communities has been so vital

and necessary to advance our understanding of each other.

When I was growing up, long before I had ever set foot on a film set or in a TV studio, I was

struck by the words of U.S. President John F. Kennedy when he called upon his fellow

citizens, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

Those words have stayed with me ever since, acting in many ways as a guiding principle

behind my career.

I am a man from the south who succeeded in the north and did not forget his roots. I am

proud to have been able to take the knowledge and experience I gained working in Europe

and bring that back with me to Tunisia, along the way building film studios, setting up state-

of-the-art labs and launching a free, independent TV network in Nessma. I have employed

tens of thousands of Tunisians in the process.

It is however the words of another visionary leader that I would like to call upon this

morning.

“No matter how many buildings, foundations, schools and hospitals we build, or how many

bridges we raise, all these are material entities. The real spirit behind progress is the human

spirit, the able man with his intellect and capabilities.”



Those were the words of the great Sheikh Zayed, God Rest His Soul. How true his words are

I had the privilege of meeting Sheikh Zayed with my uncle Habib Bourguiba, the first

President of an independent Tunisia. Despite coming from different background and being

leaders of countries with vastly different resources to call upon, in many ways they were

kindred spirits.

Both understood and recognised the value of building their citizens up. Both understood the

importance of education. Both appreciated the crucial – and equal- role that women should

play in their society. Most importantly, both had a vision that placed the well-being and

future prosperity of their own citizens at the heart of their plans.

That is why I am proud to look around this room today and see so many young Emiratis keen

to pursue careers in film and TV, both at home and abroad.

That is why it is imperative that organisations in Abu Dhabi and the region do everything

they can to support these young men and women. They are the future of this country. It will

be these young men and women in the room today who will be charged with taking their

country forward. They should be the real reason why any of us are here today in this room.

I will never forget how my uncle would tell me in private how happy he was that Tunisia

didn’t have any oil or gas. When I would ask him why, he would tell me it allowed him to

convince the youth of Tunisia that they had to work hard and earn their place.

It was something I learnt myself the hard way trying to break into the film business. Here

was a guy, with a name like Tarak Ben Ammar, from a country like Tunisia with no oil or

money, knocking on people’s doors in Los Angeles and across Europe. It wasn’t easy but,

thanks to God, with persistence and dedication it eventually paid off and I forged friendships

and partnerships with individuals from all backgrounds.

Like many young Arabs, a career in the media for me was not automatic or easy to choose,

particularly when it came to convincing my parents. I studied international economics and

politics at Georgetown University and returned to Tunisia, as far as my family was

concerned, to carry on our tradition of politics and diplomacy. But that prospect bored me

terribly.



I had been too close to the world of politics and knew that I really didn’t like it. It was the

audiovisual industry that interested me. Not necessarily film making, it could have been

advertising or journalism. I was fascinated to see the ways in which the Americans could sell

us a bottle of Coca-Cola and almost give it a soul.

I asked myself, what can I do that will give me a career, independence from my family and

serve my country?

It was at that moment that the idea of cinema came to me. I had to promote Tunisia, as the

Spanish and Italians had done for their countries.

My family, of course, did not take it well to begin with. It was really as if I had said I don’t

want to go to Harvard, I want to become an entertainer on Broadway. My parents were in a

state of shock.

By the way I was actually accepted into Harvard to do an MBA but was never able to take

my place thanks to the speed with which my film career took off.

With time and patience, my family came to understand and see the value in what I was

trying to do.

There is no more powerful tool than the ability to make someone connect with your story

through an image, a word, a song.

How many people learned about India’s struggle for independence through a film like

Gandhi. How many people sympathised with the plight of the Native Americans after a film

like Dances with Wolves ?

The moving image is the single most effective means of mass communication.

That is why, as Arabs and media professionals based in the Arab world, we have a duty,

some might even say a moral obligation, to get our stories and points of view out to the

world through films and TV programmes.



In an age when we see Islamophobia actually rising, we have a responsibility to provide a

counter balance, a different point of view.

Of course, I do not mean that we should indulge in propaganda.

Quite the opposite. We must be honest, self-critical and open to different ideas.

We must also do everything we can to ensure that the tolerant, moderate view of the Arab

world, including Islam and the plurality of other religions which exist here, along with the

progressive, compassionate hopes and dreams of so many in this region, are allowed a

platform for expression.

Without that, then everything we are here to discuss over the next three days at The Circle,

and celebrate at the Abu Dhabi film festival, will count for nothing.

We must let the world know that Arab is not a dirty word.

When I read in the Financial Times, that over the next four years, the Gulf states between

them are set to spend over 120 billion dollars on defense, and then I find out that

companies based here have yet to spend any meaningful production dollars on Arab

cinema, I know that something is wrong.

If we can give just 0.1% of the expenditure committed to armaments to the fields of culture,

we will be able to sustain the Arab film industry for years to come.

Remember what Sheikh Zayed told you. « The real spirit behind progress is the human

spirit. »

There is no more effective tool to lift the human spirit than allowing someone to connect

with their fellow man.

That is why, I am delighted to stand here today and tell you that I am now only four days

away from the commencement of principal photography on a feature film I have wanted to

make for over 30 years.

It is an adaptation of a book I first optioned in 1978 by Hans Reusch called The Great Thirst.



I built myself up step by step.

I enjoyed success- some failures too I must add- but was able to establish myself and my

company without any Arab money.

I made my career in the marketplace on equal terms with my competitors. I could only rely

on my hard work and whatever talent I had. Thank God, the successes outnumbered the

failures.

Then, more than 30 years later, I asked myself, have my Arab brothers changed? Are they

still only interested in oil and gas, real estate and armaments or have they begun to see the

value and importance of culture and the media.

Can we convince our Arab brothers in this region to invest part of the billions and billions of

dollars spent on armaments alone on culture?

My standing here today, on the opening day of The Circle conference and a day before the

opening of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival is a testament to how much progress has been done

in a short space of time.

That in the coming weeks, there will be further festivals, all with dedicated sections

committed to Arab and Middle Eastern films, in Tunis, Doha, Marrakech, Beirut, Damascus

and Dubai just goes to show that we may be on the cusp of an exciting new age for Arab and

Middle Eastern culture, a 21st

century renaissance to provide us with an antidote to the

unrelenting grimness of the headlines in the news and lack of political progress.

However, there is still much to be done.

I have seen some of the film deals announced by my friends in Abu Dhabi and applaud their

ambition.

I would hope, however, my friends in Abu Dhabi would not put too much focus on

Hollywood films. The film business is a different place today to when I began my career.



Today, it is a genuinely global business. The studios in America regularly make more money

theatrically internationally than they do in the U.S., a situation that would have been

unthinkable twenty years ago.

If you are to invest in Hollywood films, think strategically. Be smarter than the investors who

came to Los Angeles before you with their chequebooks open only to leave years later with

a hole where their money used to be. You wouldn’t be the first. The only ones who have

succeeded are those who gave as much importance to their own region as they did the

glittering lights of Hollywood.

I would pose the following questions to my friends in Abu Dhabi and the region as a whole.

What have you done to build up a local Arab market for Arab films?

How many trips have you taken to Egypt to see if you can replicate the successful local

model there on a more regional basis?

How many trips have you taken to Syria, Jordan, Morocco or Tunisia, countries which have

made great strides in developing their local production infrastructure?

What are you doing to improve regional collaboration?

We can only succeed if we work together.

Great things have been done and are being done in Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai and other

places. Now is the time to connect the dots. It is not enough to pay lip service to this

market. You must do your utmost to improve this market.

I myself have made a number of Arab feature films over the years, such as The Kite by a

wonderful Lebanese filmmaker Randa Chahall, God rest her soul, which won the special jury

prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Dove’s Lost Necklace by the talented Tunisian

filmmaker Nacer Khemir, who I believe was honoured by the Abu Dhabi Film Festival two

years ago.

I know that it is not easy to have these stories connect with international audiences.



I am sure that there are dozens of scripts by aspiring Arab filmmakers lying on the desks of

executives here in Abu Dhabi.

You cannot measure the value and upside of these projects merely in terms of dollars and

cents. Do not only ask these filmmakers how much money their films will make.

One must also measure the upside of a project by taking into account its potential cultural

impact, socio-political importance and above all, its quality as a feature film.

There must be a higher judgement than simply the bottom line. There must be a vision

behind the practice, a strategy to better the perspective, standing and reputation of Arabs

and their world at home and abroad.

When the Sistine Chapel was built, do you think Michaelangelo’s patrons only looked at the

numbers. Of course not.

But the finished work has lasted for centuries.

Look closer to home. When Abu Dhabi made the bold decision to build a Guggenheim and

Louvre here to bring culture to its people, the decision was driven by a higher belief than

mere profit. But we must not stop there. We must also take our stories to the rest of the

world.

Your legacy cannot just be the glittering buildings we see around us. We also need to export

our own cultural heritage with all its riches so the world can better understand us.

You have the power to change this region for the better.

With all the billions that God has blessed you with in terms of natural resources, be excited

by, not afraid of, the impact you can now have on the human resources around you when it

comes to a lasting cultural legacy.

That is why my company Quinta Communications this year launched a film division with the

dedicated aim of producing feature films about the Arab world and Middle East for the

international market.



I am here today to tell you that Quinta is ready to work with filmmakers across this region to

ensure that their films will be seen by audiences across Europe.

We already have distribution in France, Italy and Spain.

My North African TV station Nessma reaches over 90 milllion Arabs in North Africa and a

further 25 million Arabs in Europe. It is also on Nilesat and Arabsat, allowing audiences

across the entire Arab world access to it as well.

Quinta has partnerships across Europe and the world with players like Sky, Mediaset, TF1

and many others.

The infrastructure now exists with a company like Quinta to take your stories into multiple

territories.

That was one of the main reasons why, this year, we co-produced two films: Julian

Schnabel’s “Miral” and Rachid Bouchareb’s “Outside The Law.”

Julian’s film, which I’m delighted will be having its Middle Eastern premiere in Abu Dhabi on

October 21, is based on Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal’s biographical book “Miral.” It

tells the story of the wonderful Palestinian lady Hend Husseini, who founded the Dar El Tifl

orphanage in Jerusalem following the partition of Palestine and creation of the state of

Israel in 1948.

Here was a film which was both politically sensitive and commercially challenging. And yet, I

found it impossible to say no to Julian and my dear friend Jerome Seydoux at Pathe when

they asked me to come on board the project.

Here we had a film that was defiantly pro-peace and in favour of the establishment of a

Palestinian state being made by an American Jewish filmmaker who had spent his whole life

being a keen supporter of Israel.

Once he had heard the other side of the story, however, by reading Rula’s book, he took it

upon himself as a moral obligation to do all he could to bring about an end to that injustice.



Julian is not a politician, of course, but an artist so his tool of choice was to make an artistic

expression of the need for an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The film received its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, where it

received a standing ovation. I spent the evening talking to Italians in the audience, some in

tears, who told me they had never seen the Palestinian side of the story away from the

news.

I am proud to be associated with the passion and integrity of a filmmaker like Julian

Schnabel as well as the film’s screenwriter Rula Jebreal not to mention wonderful, talented

Arab actresses like Hiam Abbas and Yasmin Masri.

Miral won the Unicef Award at the Venice Film Festival for best reflecting the principles of

Unicef and, I’m proud to say, has also been selected for a special screening at the United

Nations’ General Assembly.

You cannot measure the value of something like that in mere dollars and cents.

Rachid Bouchareb’s Outside the Law was co-financed by my company Quinta, Canal Plus

and the Algerian goverment and was shot in my studios in Tunisia.

The film, which received its world premiere in competition at Cannes, is about the Algerian

struggle for independence against French colonial rule.

How rare to have the chance to work on a film in which Arabs are the heroes fighting for

their freedom. How rare to work with a filmmaker like Rachid Bouchareb who was able to

change French law thanks to his earlier film “Days of Glory,” which recounted the forgotten

contribution of Arabs and Muslims to World War 2 in the fight against Nazism and fascism.

These are two films which make bold statements.

The Algerian government did not hesitate to co-finance Rachid’s film –even though it was

shot in Tunisia- and the state-owned oil company Sonatrach did not hesitate to agree to

finance the Oscar campaign in the best foreign language film category.



These decisions were not based on dollars and cents. They were based on supporting a

filmmaker and his vision in telling the world about the story of the Algerian people and their

fight for freedom.

As I mentioned earlier, when I began my career I did not have the backing of millions of

petro-dollars. When I convinced the likes of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Franco Zeffirelli

and Roman Polanski and many others to come and film in Tunisia, I had no money to offer

them. I had no financial support from the Tunisian government. What little they had was

being spent on education, health and essential infrastructure like building roads. I received

zero financing from any local banks.

I only had my passion and my youthful energy. Now, more than thirty years later, the youth

may have waned a little, but the passion remains the same. I must thank both Steven and

George for agreeing to hire young Tunisians on their productions. 35 years and 65 films

later, over half a million salary slips have been paid out to Tunisians and half a billion dollars

has been spent in Tunisia from feature films which had a combined budget of well over a

billion dollars.

On Black Gold, we have more than 400 Tunisians technicians working on the shoot. These

aren’t just drivers. They’re actors, craftsmen, decorators, painters and cameramen working

across every department. Only 10 per cent of the crew will be made up of foreign workers.

The film will be shot in my studios in Tunisia, studios that were built, painted and dressed by

Tunisian hands. The post-production will be done in my labs in Tunisia during the shoot by

Tunisian technicians.

If I was able to do all this with no money, imagine what could be done here in Abu Dhabi

and this region with the resources at your disposal. You could do ten times what I did.

But there must be the will and interest to invest locally and regionally.

Do not allow the legacy of Abu Dhabi to be one of wasted opportunities and missed

chances. Work with your citizens to build up your local industry. Work with your neighbours

to build up your regional industry.



This is, after all, your region.

Work with Europe. In Europe alone you have some 25 million Arabs, who deserve to be

addressed.

Never before has youth been in a position to play such a crucial role in the Arab world. Two

thirds of our population is under the age of 25. For the most part our youth do not get their

information from newspapers or book but from television. What’s more, in the Arab world

this generation watches on average six hours of television a day. That is almost double the

average of TV viewers in Europe.

A year and a half ago, my partners and I decided to launch Nessma, the only commercial,free-to-air, independent satellite channel to cover North Africa. All the other channels in

North Africa are state-owned.

Nessma TV, which means gentle breeze in Arabic, is now number one in Tunisia and Algeria

only a year after its launch and number two in Morocco.

What did I want to achieve with this station?

North Africa is made up of 90 million people, almost a third of the total population of the

Arab world. That right there is your natural bridge between Europe and the Middle East.

Beyond that, Nessma has become a platform to develop new talent, to showcase new films.

We no longer have to go begging to European distributors and TV channels to distribute our

product.

The platform now exists.

Just think of the incredible talent working in TV today in terms of writers, directors,

storytellers and actors. We can replicate this with our own channels. Stations like MBC, and

visionary men like Sheikh Waleed al-Ibrahim, have already revolutionised the Arab TV

market. Let us now work together to go to the next level.

The history of humanity and civilisation has been built on a number of inalienable rights,

one of which is the right to travel.



terms. Do not let them just see you as a pay check. Impose your own culture, your own

stories.

If you want to play that game, then play the big boys’ game.

Buy companies. Acquire a studio. That’s where the real power lies. That is what will really

grab the attention of corporate America, particularly in these economic times. The Japanese

understood that when they bought Columbia. So did the Indians when they bought

Dreamworks.

And do not ignore the rest of the world.

Hollywood doesn’t need your money but it will happily take it, just as it took countless

others before you.

Of course, it is easy to look back on a thirty year old career and pretend that every move has

been meticulously mapped out and part of a grand design.

We all know that life, and business, rarely works so smoothly.

Sometimes life, and business, throw up opportunities, moments when we must make a

decision. One of those moments came to me with my decision to move into film distribution

with Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”.

At the time, Mel was being accused of having made an anti-Semitic film by people who had

not even seen it. Those rumours created an atmosphere of fear and meant that a boycott by

distributors and exhibitors in Europe, particularly France, was becoming a reality.

For me, this stood against all my principles of believing in freedom of speech and expression

and the freedom to follow one’s faith.

So, I decided to distribute the film in France and secured its release in over ten other

territories across the world. I had friends and associates try to stop me from doing it. Many

told me that as an Arab and a Muslim, I was leaving myself open to accusations of being an

anti-Semite myself.



But it was precisely because I was an Arab and a Muslim that I felt a duty, a moral

obligation, to defend someone else’s beliefs and faith.

I was brought up in an environment where Habib Bourguiba made a speech in 1965 in

Jericho- before the Six Day war in 1967 I must add- where he called for the right of Israel to

exist on the condition that there was an end to the occupation of Palestinian lands and the

creation of a Palestinian state.

At the time he was viciously attacked by other Arab leaders as a traitor. Today, his vision is

the universally-accepted template for, God Willing, the establishment of a Palestinian state

and an end to this interminable conflict.

And so, I released Passion of the Christ precisely because I felt it was my duty to defend the

religious rights of Christians and Jews. I wanted to show the world that Muslims too

believed in Jesus Christ and thought of him as a prophet along with Moses and Abraham.

And if an Arab and a Muslim can support and promote a Christian or a Jew’s religious

freedoms and beliefs, so too must they support and promote the freedoms and beliefs of

their neighbours.

And so, six years later, in a sign of God’s great generosity, a film like Black Gold which shows

the tolerant, moderate side of Arabs and Muslims, set under the glittering stars of the

Arabian desert, and wrapped up in an exciting, big budget adventure story for the whole

family will be the big Christmas release across the world for two of America’s biggest

studios.

I can announce today that Warner Bros and Universal have come on board Black Gold as

worldwide partner-distributors on a multi-territory basis.

This is unprecedented for a film made by Arabs, about Arabs and filmed in the Arab world.

If major companies like Universal and Warner Bros can see the upside in a film in which the

hero is a young Arab, it shows you how cinema can truly transcends borders.



This is the real spirit of collaboration between East and West based on mutual respect and

understanding.

The idea that millions of viewers around the world, regardless of age, race, religion, creed,

gender or class can be united under one roof, in front of one screen and carried away into a

shared experience is a magical one.

That is the true upside of filmmaking. It is not in a dollars and cents accounting approach. It

lies in the power of the idea and the power of the imagination.

To the aspiring Emirati filmmakers here today, do not think that because your land is

blessed with resources, everything should be handed to you on a plate. Quite the contrary.

Earn it. Understand the true nature of making films. Learn about the business of film. Great

filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski all succeeded without

the help of hand outs. All they had was imagination, talent and an appetite for hard work.

You must be the same.

It is not easy to make a film.

Work harder than your neighbour and make sure you have something fresh, original and

relevant to say.

And to my friends in Abu Dhabi and the region with the ability to make the dreams of these

young filmmakers come true, do not ignore your legacy.

Anyone can make a film which adheres to the bottom line. Very few can make a film which

lives in our dreams for years and creates a value incalculable in mere dollars and cents. Let

that be your real upside.

When Pathe took a risk on a film like Slumdog Millionaire, the decision was not a pure

business one. Here was a story with unknown actors, set in India, partly in the Hindi

language.



But they believed in the book, the director, the passion of the story. And it walked away

with awards and money.

Remember what Sheikh Zayed told you. “Wealth is not money. Wealth lies in individuals.

This is where true power lies. This is what has convinced us to direct all our resources to

building the individual, and to using the wealth which God has provided us in the service of

the nation.”

Let us work together to build a new golden age for Arab culture. Let us not keep looking

back with regret and longing to the Al Hambra in Andalucia, Let us build new Al Hambras all

across this region. This is what history will remember.

I am reminded at this time by a scene from one of my favourite films Amadeus when the

Emperor turns to Mozart following one recital and tells him he fears there are too many

notes. And so, in fear of having said too many words, I thank you all for your time and

patience and would ask you to turn your attention to the screen so that we can allow the

films to speak for themselves.

Tarak-Ben-Ammar-Keynote-speech-Circle-Conference-13-October-2010

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