‘White Noise’ Producer Uri Singer’s TaleFlick Platform Makes Hollywood Overture to Saudi Arabian Storytellers (Variety Exclusive)

Source: Variety

By Nick Vivarelli

TaleFlick, the online story discovery platform launched by “White Noise” producer Uri Singer and former Netflix executive George Berry, is opening its doors to poets in a move it says is driven by a desire to welcome submissions that “capture the essence, history, and vibrant traditions of Saudi Arabian culture.”

Storytelling in the Arab world is traditionally tied to oral history and poetry. The stated goal of opening TaleFlick – which provides writers with a chance to showcase their work to producers and studios – is to build a bridge between Saudi poems and Hollywood.

“Poetry is the heartbeat of Saudi Arabian culture, resonating deeply with its people and heritage,” Singer – who is TaleFlick’s CEO – said in a statement to Variety. “By embracing poems, we aim to honor and elevate this beautiful art form, providing a platform to transform these stories into powerful visual narratives,” he added.

TaleFlick’s expansion from fiction and non-fiction novels and screenplays into poetry from all over the world will allow poets from Saudi Arabia and beyond “to share their unique voices and stories with a global audience,” according to a statement.

The poems submitted to TaleFlick will be curated and showcased to a network of studios and producers, “offering a unique opportunity for these poetic works to be adapted into films, TV series, and other forms of visual storytelling,” it added. Submitted poems will be available to studios and producers worldwide.

Singer specified that Saudi poems can be submitted in Arabic, “as our curation team includes translators and poets originally from the region as well.” The submission process is free of charge.

One year ago TaleFlick – which was launched in 2018 – expanded its scope beyong the English-speaking world also accepting submissions in Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, and South Korean.

TaleFlick’s planned next step in this initiative is to select participants from the poem submissions to the site, giving them an opportunity to take part in a reality TV show called “House of Poems,” the statement said.

That would not be a novelty, since in the Middle East there is already “The Million’s Poet,” a sort of “American Idol” for Arab region poets, male and female, that has been running since 2007 on Abu Dhabi TV and has million of viewers across the Arab world.

And of course ties are already in place between poetry and cinema in the region.

A recent example of the intersection of poetry and film in Saudi Arabia is Mohamed Al Salman’s absurdist drama “Raven Song,” which was Saudi’s submission for the Academy Awards last year and is about a young man named Nasser, who, after being diagnosed with a brain tumor, is coaxed by his best friend to reach out to an enigmatic woman with whom he is infatuated by singing her a love poem.

Singer, who attended Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival last year – and is planning to reuturn – is a prolific producer best known for “Marjorie Prime,” “White Noise” and “Tesla.” His upcoming projects reportedly include two films rooted in the region, Palestinian director Maysaloun Hamoud’s long-gestating female revenge thriller “Beretta” and British director Jon Amiel’s Saudi oil origins story “Sands of Fortune.”

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You can submit a poem by clicking here.