Guest Blog: Letter From Dubai

Script Whisperer client, Rouge Wave reader and my dear friend Libby entertains me daily with the trials and travails of living in Dubai. I asked her to share some of her experiences with Rouge Wavers:

You never know where life is going to lead you. If you had asked me where I would be in 20 years, I never would have dreamt it would be the Middle East.

Dubai, an Emirate that’s part of the United Arab Emirates, is a long way from Pontiac, Michigan! And if you asked what I would be doing, well, I could have probably come up with writing, in some form or another. But writing screenplays from Pontiac is a whole lot different than writing from Dubai. While the UAE is a Muslim country, it’s still very Western. Women don’t have to wear abayas and walk around freely in shorts and t-shirts without so much as a second glance. Pork and alcohol are readily available. Churches are many and thriving. I can’t say enough great things about this place. But (and there’s always a ‘but’) for a screenwriter, there’s a lot more than just sheer distance from Hollywood that makes it difficult to work on the craft.

The internet is censored here. Sites that are considered contrary to Islam are blocked. Quite some time ago, over at Done Deal, many posters were going to whorepresents.com for their info. They used to joke about getting presents from whores. Well, there were no presents for me, that’s for sure. Blocked. Although, when I went to check the balance of my student loan and typed in .com instead of .net, I got a full on Korean porn site that somehow escaped the censors!

And the movies available…that’s a whole different story. When I first got here, I went to the local video rental and picked up ‘2 Die 4’. Bear in mind this was a VHS and not DVD. Just as Nicole Kidman is seducing Joaquin Phoenix with a very suggestive dance, out of nowhere, the film is spliced with a boat chase, gun shots and a fiery explosion! Then it cut back to the movie and a totally different scene. Talk about coitus interruptus!

If you go to the theater to catch a film, you can be sure it’s censored. In fact, up until just a year or so ago, all films had to be no more than two hours long. You can imagine the ‘editing’ that went on. The powers that be seem to choose the blockbuster flicks only and allow them to run, on average, two weeks. The motto here is, “If you see something you like, jump on it because you never know when it will be gone.” That applies to everything from groceries to movies!

Everyone here has satellite tv and we do get our fair share of American shows: Entourage, CSI, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives. We just happen to be a couple (or several) seasons behind. And while we do get some of the more popular shows, we also get a lot of crap, the stuff that lasted a single season and is played over and over again until they find another lame show to fill its spot. I shouldn’t complain, though because luckily, satellite tv is not censored.



Here’s a funny tv related story for you: Julie did coverage on one of my scripts and recommended that I watch ‘Great Expectations’, the one with DeNiro, Hawke and Paltrow. I could not find it anywhere in Dubai, neither for rental nor for sale. One night I happened to be flipping channels and what is one of the feature films to be played during the Holy Month of Ramadan: Great Expectations! But get this: I so wanted to see ‘Great Expectations’ that I turned to YouTube (thankfully not blocked!). I finally found and watched ‘Great Expectations’…in 14 one to five minute segments. Just when I would be getting into a scene, the clip would end and I’d have to search for the next. I can see why the film was not available here but, for the life of me, I do not understand how it can be a feature film during Islam’s most holy month!

Dubai knows that its future lies not in oil as the majority of reserves are found with their Gulf neighbors. It’s banking on trade and tourism. The city is one big construction site, building the biggest and the tallest you-name-it. It’s also the gateway between the Far East and Europe/Africa. But what does that have to do with screenwriting? Bollywood is just a stone’s throw away and there are already several Indian soaps filmed here. And let’s not forget ‘Syriana’ was filmed here. Only three years ago, we had the first annual Dubai International Film Festival which welcomed both Morgan Freeman and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Dubai is also building its very own Studio City to lure filmmakers into its tax-free economy. A branch of the Manhattan Film Academy opened its doors not too long ago, as well. And just two years ago Linda Seger was in town for a week-end seminar.

It’s not always easy to write from here but progress is on the horizon. I continue to grapple with the morality of buying DVDs from the Chinese lady who goes door to door selling pirated releases. As long as there’s YouTube, I suppose I can continue to hold out. But after having to watch ‘Great Expectations’ in 14 patchworked segments, it’s getting tougher to resist!

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