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Peace plan

Emirati director and man behind ‘Freej’ is one of the directors in Salma Hayek’s ‘The Prophet’

- By David Tusing, Deputy tabloid! Editor

Salma Hayek’s animated film ‘The Prophet’, based on poet Khalil Gibran’s book, challenges the younger

generation to break convention, learn tolerance and work towards harmony — with a little help from regional talent, such as, Emirati director and ‘Freej’

creator Mohammad Saeed Harib

Alittle over three years ago, when Hollywood star Salma Hayek decided to make a movie inspired by her ancestral homeland of Lebanon, she assembled a number of top-notch names to help her bring it to life. The result, an animated film called Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, based on the iconic Lebanese philosophe­r’s best-selling work, was to have eight segment directors and one director to helm the connective narrative.

Roger Allers, the director of The Lion King, came on board as the main director, with other segment directors including Tomm Moore, who directed the Oscar-nominated Song of the

Sea, another Academy Award nominee, Bill Plympton, and acclaimed French artist Joann Sfar, among others. All voice actors are Oscar nominees: Quvenzhane Wallis, Liam Neeson and Hayek herself.

But Hayek’s co-financiers at the Doha Film Institute thought it was missing a bit of Arabian flavour, a voice from the Middle East, considerin­g it was a story of and by someone from the region.

Enter Mohammad Saeed Harib, the man behind the pathbreaki­ng Emirati animation series Freej.

“I was already working on a project with the Doha Film Institute then, and they asked me if I wanted to come on board. I jumped on the opportunit­y,” Harib recalls.

The 37-year-old says the pressure was not only working with such icons of the animation genre, but also recreating the works of a literary icon, regarded with such esteem in the Middle East.

“I had to do it justice. I consulted a lot with Roger, who was the captain of

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Producer of the film.
Haytham Nasr, Executive Producer of the film.

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