Shooting on film is back, and it's becoming advertising's most coveted craft

Somewhere between the rise of digital cinema and the race for 8K resolution, something unexpected happened. Film came back.

Not as nostalgia. As a creative choice.

Across the industry, celluloid is quietly becoming the most niche and sought-after way to shoot a commercial. The texture, the grain, the way film handles light and skin tones. It's something no digital sensor or post-production filter has ever truly replaced. You can emulate film. You can't be film.

What's surprising is who's driving the revival. It isn't the old guard clinging to the past. It's a new generation of filmmakers who grew up entirely on digital and are now discovering celluloid for the first time. For them, film isn't a throwback. It's a discipline. When every frame costs money, every frame has to matter. No endless takes, no fixing it in post. You light it right, you rehearse, you commit.

That commitment comes at a price, especially in this region. Film stock has to be flown in from London or Paris. Once shot, the exposed reels travel back the same way to be processed, since there are no labs here. Every roll makes a round trip across continents before anyone sees a single frame. It's expensive, it's complicated, and it's slow.

It also says something about where Dubai itself is headed. The city's production landscape is shifting fast, no longer just a backdrop for other people's campaigns, but a genuine hub in its own right. International directors, DPs, and colorists are relocating here, drawn by the pace of the market and the ambition of the work being greenlit. At the same time, regional production houses aren't just keeping up, they're setting the pace, pushing for the same craft and rigor you'd expect from London or Los Angeles, but with a distinctly local point of view. Choosing to shoot on film, in a region with no labs and no shortcuts, is part of that same ambition: a willingness to do things the harder, better way.

Which is exactly why the work stands out.

Recently, a Dubai-based film production company, The Company Films, shot a full campaign for Casio Middle East entirely on film. The G-Shock commercial was captured on an ARRI 35mm camera with Kodak film stock, reels flown in, shot with intent, and sent back across the world for processing. The result carries that unmistakable warmth and honesty that only celluloid delivers.

The story behind the project is fittingly analog. Two of the company's producers had bought Casio watches purely out of love for old times. Two weeks later, a brief from Casio landed in their inbox.

Some things are just meant to be shot on film.

Watch the commercial here: https://vimeo.com/1179815066