A little over three years ago, when Hollywood star Salma Hayek decided to make a movie inspired by her ancestral homeland of Lebanon, she assembled a number of top-notch names to help her bring it to life. The result, an animated film called Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, based on the iconic Lebanese philosopher’s best-selling work, was to have eight segment directors and one director to helm the connective narrative.
Roger Allers, the director of The Lion King, came on board as the main director, with other segment directors including Tomm Moore, who directed the Oscar-nominated Song of the Sea, another Academy Award nominee, Bill Plympton, and acclaimed French artist Joann Sfar, among others. All voice actors are Oscar nominees: Quvenzhane Wallis, Liam Neeson and Hayek herself.
But Hayek’s co-financiers at the Doha Film Institute thought it was missing a bit of Arabian flavour, a voice from the Middle East, considering it was a story of and by someone from the region.
Enter Mohammad Saeed Harib, the man behind the path-breaking Emirati animation series Freej.
“I was already working on a project with the Doha Film Institute then, and they asked me if I wanted to come on board. I jumped on the opportunity,” Harib recalls.
The 37-year-old says the pressure was not only working with such icons of the animation genre, but also recreating the works of a literary icon, regarded with such esteem in the Middle East.
“I had to do it justice. I consulted a lot with Roger, who was the captain of the ship, and also exchanged notes with the other directors,” recalls Harib. “I didn’t want to just go down the familiar Freej 3D route. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to go further.”
Using a technique called aquarelle, a painting made from watercolours, Harib says his segment, called ‘Good and Evil’, has a strong Middle Eastern flavour.
“It comes later in the movie and it’s the one with a lot of animals,” he teases, not willing to reveal too much. “Mine is the only chapter that has no humans.
“I’ve also dropped a lot of Middle Eastern references, with the use of calligraphy, for instance, and little inserts you will notice if you’re clever.”
His short segment took a painstaking three years to build since each movement had to be hand-painted.
“Two seasons of Freej passed while we were working on this,” he laughs, referring to his hit animated series that is all set to return this Ramadan.
An Emirati trendsetter in his own right, Harib is also working on his first live action feature film, a comedy set in the UAE. Produced by Abu Dhabi’s Image Nation, the film is set to start filming this October.
Harib says he is not nervous about delving into something he’s not done before.
“When I finished Freej Season 1, I was afraid to make Freej Season 2. Then I was offered Freej Folklore, the theatre show. I had little know-how on how to do a large scale show on a completely different format,” he says. “You question yourself. But it takes the same kind of energy, really. You just push yourself with confidence.”
Also coming up, besides Freej, is another children’s animated series, which will be released with 10 iPad games, and some more pre-production work for the upcoming comedy.
“With Freej, this other animated series and the going into the movie, I think I have enough to keep me busy for a while,” he laughs.
