al-monitor.com: The web series format is growing in popularity in the Arab world,
providing youths and others with an uncensored forum for self-expression
and an outlet for social commentary.

“Zyara,”
a Lebanese documentary web series, has been attracting international
attention since December 2015, winning awards at competitions in Bilbao,
Buenos Aires, Dublin, Rome and other European festivals. The first
installment of “Zyara,” which means “Visit,” consists of 12 short
videos, around five minutes each, in which a person talks about his or
her life.

Cinematographer Muriel Aboulrouss, speaking for herself and producer
Denise Jabbour, described Zyara as “depicting intimate portraits of
various Lebanese individuals sharing their hopes and dreams, stories
about love, fears and most memorable experiences.”

Aboulrouss and Jabbour jointly head the production company Home of
Cine-Jam and fully funded the first installment of “Zyara” themselves.
“Our aim is to tell true stories, to bring people closer together, to
touch hearts,” Aboulrouss told Al-Monitor. “‘Zyara’ promotes oneness by
exploring universal human emotions outside religion, politics or
anything that separates us. ‘Zyara’ is a borderless and limitless web
series. It is addressed to every human being on this planet.”

The idea for the show came to Jabbour in 2014, amid “a tough
socio-political phase in the country.” She and Aboulrouss “decided to
act instead of waiting for times to get better, to resist conflict and
war, hatred and fanaticism.” After completing four pilot episodes, they
decided to submit “Zyara” at international festivals.

“We have won 11 awards so far,” Aboulrouss said. “The last episode,
the 12th, was released on May 16. We got international distribution for
the first season, and we are working on finding sponsorship to keep
‘Zyara’ going.”

The documentary approach in “Zyara” sets it apart from its popular web series predecessors in Lebanon, such as “Shankaboot,” “Fasateen,” “Beirut, I Love You” and “Mamnou3!,”
which are fictional. These earlier shows launched the web series genre
in the Arab world in 2009 and the early 2010s, when a new generation of
young people, used to spending more time online than in front of the TV,
began creating their own videos for viewing online. The creators of
these web series have two shared traits: the need for independence and
the aim of expanding across borders.

“Web is an international medium, it can reach the heart of every
human anywhere on planet earth,” Aboulrouss? told Al-Monitor. “It’s also
free of censorship, so we are really free to create with no rules or
limitations.”

“Shankaboot,” the first Arab web drama and filmed in Beirut, told
stories about the everyday life of young Lebanese. In 2009, when
“Shankaboot” received funding from the British Broadcasting Corporation,
the internet was not an ideal medium because of slow connections, but, as producer Amin Dora explained to Al-Monitor, it has its perks.

“It was a revelation that a platform outside traditional media was
available, especially with little money and very connected youth,” said
Dora. “The language we decided to use for ‘Shankaboot’ is how Lebanese
youths speak, is close to how they live, far from the Turkish soap operas
we watch on TV that have been so popular in the region since 2008.
Plus, it avoids censorship, as YouTube is not checked by the censorship
office of the General Security. We could talk about whatever we wanted,
even about taboo subjects.”

According to Dora, “Shankaboot” set an example that encouraged other
young people in the region to follow suit. “I’ve met a lot of people who
were inspired by it and launched their own YouTube channel, like the
team Tefaz 11 in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “It’s just an example. We can
do ‘real stories’ that are simple and natural.”

Around the time that “Shankaboot” launched, two friends, Cyril Aris
and Mounia Akl, picked up a camera to shoot “Beirut, I Love You,” a
short movie that they uploaded for their friends.

“We received 200,000 views right away, and Yara Daher, producer at
the local TV station LBC, called us to make it into a web series,” Aris,
co-writer and director, told Al-Monitor. “Web series were already
popular around the world, not only in Lebanon. I think their success
comes from direct access to the audience, without going through a
production house’s filter that decides what is good on TV and what is
not. Viewers get content that appeals to their tastes.”

The picture seems idyllic, but Khodor Ellaik, director of
acquisitions at Cinemoz, a video on-demand platform and media company
streaming films and TV shows in the region, laments the lack of
attraction Lebanese web series receive.

“The biggest [web] audiences are in the Gulf and in Egypt,” Ellaik
told Al-Monitor. “In Saudi Arabia, web shows have 1.5 billion viewers,
whereas in Lebanon they have minimal success. There are keys to a web
series: format — it has to be short; content — how relevant the subject
is; and talent itself. In Lebanon, the content is as divided as the
people are. For example, shows like ‘Shankaboot’ and ‘Beirut, I Love
You’ target friends of the actors and producers, who share them with
their friends, etc., but there are bigger strategies than that in the
neighboring countries.”

Cinemoz is currently working on four dramas. “People already watch
‘Games of Thrones,’ ‘Mad Men,’ etc., so we have a show about zombies,
one about a quest in space, another about Saudi brothers in the desert,”
Ellaik said. “Despite what we think here, the Gulf and Egypt’s youth
are not that conservative. We can do better things than intellectually
reserved themes by going beyond what you relate to, what your friends
want, in order to target a bigger audience.”

Ellaik added, “As show creators, we have to use the Arabic language.
We have to use all the talent from the region to present a bigger
message. We ought to be more open toward other countries. We are far
behind them in quality and creativity when it comes to web shows. We
have to forget our prejudices in order to catch up.”

Dora remarked that the future of web series in Lebanon appears to be
video blogging, a new trend. “It’s really developing, with certain
themes that are controversial and politically provocative,” she said.
“I’m thinking about Simi Merheb, Farid Hobeiche and Pierre Achach. They are superstars now!”

The main issue for the ongoing development of web series is the
problem of money. Maya De Freige, president of the Cinema Lebanon
Foundation, told Al-Monitor, “Artistic and cultural production suffers
from the severe weakness in funding.”

Indeed, financing a show is not easy in Lebanon, but it may
eventually become a little easier for some in the field. The Central
Bank of Lebanon recently issued circular 416, adopted April 4, to facilitate favorable lending by Lebanese banks for cultural or artistic production.