The director received a master’s degree in fine arts specializing in film production at the prestigious American Film Institute in Los Angeles Hana Kazim’s short film ‘Makr’ screened at several genre festivals including Fantastic Fest in Texas and FrightFest in London DUBAI: Director Hana Kazim founded Wiswas Productions, dubbed the first Arab horror-focused production company, in a bid to celebrate the power of the thrilling genre. For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @arabnews.lifestyle The Emirati auteur recently directed a Saudi Arabia-focused episode of STARZPLAY’s “Kaboos,” which is set in different eras and across countries in the MENA region, taking viewers on a journey through frightening urban legends from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and the UAE. “I found that there’s a lot of interest in horror and a lot of stories to tell, and a lot of things you can say through horror,” Kazim told Arab News. “I think some of the most courageous stories right now are being told through the mask of horror, mainly because horror can seem like to the mass audience as a spectacle, but in reality, horror has always been a champion of telling some deep truth about society, a huge commentary on society, and it’s almost like the most acceptable form of commentary in almost every region,” she added. After receiving a master’s degree in fine arts specializing in film production at the prestigious American Film Institute in Los Angeles, Kazim returned to the region to hone her craft. Kazim’s decision to launch her company came after the release of her short film “Makr,” which she wrote and directed in 2018. The movie, which gained more than half a million views online, screened at several genre festivals including Fantastic Fest in Texas and FrightFest in London. It was translated to Farsi, Korean and Japanese. The director, who has worked as a film executive in the UAE since 2015 and has been involved in the production of several Arab films, including “Rashid & Rajab” (2019) and 2021 box office hit “Al-Kameen,” said that she believes horror, “for the most part, hasn’t been done well” in the region, because finding a perfect storyline in is a challenge in the genre. “I think our audiences are still a little too critical of everything they see. They take everything a little bit more literally. So, having to break into horror is tough because you have to be somewhat near being realistic while at the same time balancing the scales of not being too aggressive or too judgmental,” Kazim said. The director believes that the main reason horror as a genre has lagged in the region is because filmmakers are going for scares rather than meaning. “I think Arab audiences are always looking for meaning in stories, be it a comedy, be it a drama — they’re looking for meaning more than just entertainment. And unfortunately, we, filmmakers, come from entertainment. So, we feel like making entertainment and we forget the idea of having meaning behind stories,” she added. “I think the Middle East has the potential to be well known for its horror because we have so many untold stories, be it from folklore to real stories — there’s a huge timeline of horror films that we can make that could span around 20, 30 and 40 years.”