Was the event staged to mark any milestone?
This was the World Premiere of an event which will be staged in many countries, the first of a series of stories and fairy tales, like Onethousand andonenights, many of which are connected to Oman. We have already written the plot for the second leg of the story which will be shot entirely in Oman. We have also written the story for Bahrain and UAE which will be presented as a film and photo essay like this one.
How much of preparation went into this project?
The project started almost three years ago. First, we shot in Italy, then in Oman on three different occasion. Some scenes were shot at Bait Al Zubair. We also had the support of the Ministry of Information – Directorate of Electronic Media that provided technicians and cameras to support a high-quality product. The scripting was a tedious job that took almost 6 months.
What message does this presentation have for people in Oman?
The message is very powerful. Many Omanis appreciated it as an enlightening presentation. As a documentary, it aims at conveying useful information but in a pleasant way. The story talks about the connections between Italy and Oman, since the Middle Ages. At that time, Venice was a very powerful city and it was the only one that had an Arabic name, not a transliterated one, such us Paris, London or Madrid. Venice had a name of its own - Al Bunduqiaa - and this was because of the strong relationship with the Arab world. This fact is explained very well in the movie clips.
Likewise, we tell about Marco Polo - the famous Venetian explorer like Ibn Battuta - who also visited Dhofar 800 years ago and wrote of it in his book Thetravelsofmarco Polo. So the connections with Oman in our story are many and very important (and people thanked us for showing it to them). We had the ability to create a project (film, exhibition and story) that could be pleasant but at the same time convey a very high cultural message, in our style.