Dubai Studio City in talks with Bollywood and Hollywood bosses

Dubai: Dubai Studio City is in negotiations with Hollywood and Bollywood film studios to serve as their Middle East base of operations, one of its top executives said yesterday.

Amina Al Rostamani, executive director of media for Tecom Investments, the owner of Dubai Studio City, said the zone is currently courting major studio houses to attract more feature films to be shot in the country.

After the master development was first created in February 2005, it is now about to welcome the first round of tenants moving into boutique offices geared specially for broadcasters and production companies.

"For the first two years we've focused on planning, and now 50 per cent of the infrastructure has been completed," Al Rostamani told Gulf News.

The free zone has found tenants for 12 out of 18 boutique offices, which will be ready this May.

Ambitious

"It's doing very well and we're now thinking of the second phase," she said of the project, which has aspirations to make Dubai the film hub of the Middle East and North Africa.

An ambitious project envisaging 22-million square feet of commercial and industrial space for film production and related activities, Dubai Studio City will take several years to be fully completed. Tecom will invest a total of Dh400 million in the project on infrastructure.

Its next phase of completion, amounting to 500,000 square feet of commercial space, should be finished in May 2008, Al Rostamani said. Hotels and other investors have already signed on to partner with Studio City on that part of the free zone, which will include screening theatres, film libraries, and 65,000 square feet of sound stages.

Already, Studio City has film-related services up and running, including a location approval department which worked with 80 companies last year to procure permits to shoot on-location in the country.