The Middle East Film and Comic Con is back with a vengeance — and their full list of celebrity guests has finally been announced. Anthony Mackie will be this year’s headlining guest, alongside filmmaker Kevin Smith (via Skype) and wrestler Kane.
MEFCC is the region’s annual geek fest, where celebrities, artists and fans of pop culture come together under one roof. It runs from April 6-8 at Dubai World Trade Centre. This year marks its sixth edition.
Check out the full list of actors, comedians and songwriters billed as celebrity guests below. Photo opportunities and autographs will be individually priced and sold at the venue.
Anthony Mackie
Watch: Anthony Mackie who plays Falcon in the MCU talks to press at #MEFCC.
Flying right into our midst is Anthony Mackie, a.k.a. the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Falcon. Mackie, known for his quick wit, winning smile and onscreen dislike of a certain Winter Soldier, landed on the Marvel fandom’s radar in 2012, when news of him joining the MCU as Sam Wilson, i.e. Falcon, began to emerge. He made his debut in Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014, followed by Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War.
The 38-year-old actor has also made a name for himself outside of the comic world, performing in Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, TV shows and Hollywood films, including 8 Mile, Hurt Locker and Million Dollar Baby. Last summer, he starred opposite Bryan Cranston in the HBO TV movie All the Way as Martin Luther King Jr.
Kevin Smith
If you’ve ever watched a low-budget ’90s cult comedy called Clerks, you won’t want to miss this.
American filmmaker Kevin Smith, who is the man behind classics such as Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma, is holding a Skype session at the Middle East Film and Comic Con on April 1. The director will do a live broadcast Q&A at 8pm, similar in format to previous MEFCC sessions with comic veteran Stan Lee.
Kane
The 23-time WWF/E champion Kane is making his UAE return. The bulky entertainer visited the UAE in 2012 and slammed his fellow fighter John Cena into a table, breaking it in half, at a Dubai press conference. More of these antics are to come as Kane visits fans in the Middle East again.
Seven feet tall (2 metres) and more than 300 pounds (136kg), the Spanish-born American wrestler is known as the Big Red Monster. He’s made a career of going head-to-head with some of the WWE’s biggest stars, including older half-brother The Undertaker, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels and Edge.
Josh McDermitt
Actor and comedian Josh McDermitt is best known for portraying Eugene Porter on The Walking Dead. The 38-year-old was a semi-finalist on the fourth season of Last Comic Standing in 2006. In 2013, he was cast in the fourth season of The Walking Dead, based on the comic of the same name. He returned as a main cast member the following season.
Liam Cunningham
Liam Cunningham is an Irish stage and screen actor known for playing Davos Seaworth on the HBO fantasy Game of Thrones. The 55-year-old actor won a Bafta in 2012 alongside Michael Fassbender for their crime-drama short, Pitch Black Heist. That same year, he joined the main cast of GoT during its second season.
Greg Grunberg
American actor Greg Grunberg is known as Matt Parkman in the TV series Heroes and ‘Snap’ Wexley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He is a childhood friend of director J.J. Abrams. Grunberg also appears in several seasons of Showtime drama Masters of Sex.
Cas Anvar
Cas Anvar began voice acting on 2011’s Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. He also portrayed Dr Singh on TV series The Tournament and appeared in the Jake Gyllenhaal film Source Code. Born in Canada to Iranian parents, Anvar speaks English, French, Persian and, to some extent, Arabic, Hindi and Spanish.
Pooja Batra
Indian actress Pooja Batra is accompanying the Middle East premiere of her Hollywood debut, One Under the Sun. The sci-fi film was praised by Stan Lee himself, who said it “brings audiences on an emotional journey and challenges their notions of war.”
Tarek Al Arabi Tourgane and Mohammad Al Arabi Tourgane
Tarek Al Arabi Tourgane is a composer and songwriter and is known as the co-founder of Arabic network Spacetoon TV Channel. He is behind some of the most popular Arabic animation theme songs, including Ninja Turtles, Mowgli, and Barbar. His son, Mohammad, has followed in his footsteps and has worked on several of the same projects.
*Tickets to MEFCC are Dh100 for a Thursday pass, Dh250 for a standard three-day pass, and Dh500 for a three-day VIP Power Pass.
