Netflix’s investments into Arabic cinema are starting to pay off.
Following the surprise success of its worldwide hit Squid Game, the streaming juggernaut made calculated investments in non-English entertainment. That included Arabic-language TV shows and movies, and this year, director Matty Brown’s Lebanese drama The Sand Castle became the most-watched Arabic-language movie on the platform, according to Deadline.
The Sand Castle, a migrant drama and thriller, racked up 10.8 million views and 17.4 million viewing hours according to Netflix’s publicly disclosed numbers. Those numbers elevated it to 36th place in the non-English category and 229th overall. It’s reflective of the surprise success of other non-English entertainment that breaks through through a little luck, a little passion, and a clever hook or relevant story. And it reflects the growing trend of English speakers becoming increasingly comfortable with non-English entertainment.
For Brown, its success is something of a surprise. The film received very little marketing, so its international success has largely been driven organically through positive word of mouth.
“Downplayed by many, it connected with millions globally,” Brown posted upon learning of the movie’s growing popularity. “It’s a win for everyone pushing bold original Arab content, and a reminder that when we back the right stories, with the right intent, they travel.”
According to Deadline, some of the credit for The Sand Castle’s success must surely go to Gianluca Chakra, whose pan-Arab production and distribution company Front Row Filmed Entertainment added the project to its slate and brought Netflix on board. Deadline reports that from the beginning, Chakra saw something special in both Brown and The Sand Castle.
“Gianluca, and I can’t say this enough, became a champion of Matty. This film is hard, and it takes an extraordinary person to push it through the ranks. Luckily, he had a successful film on Netflix, Perfect Strangers, so he had the power to push,” The Sand Castle lead producer Mandy Ward told Deadline.
In its craftsmanship and storytelling, The Sand Castle reflects some of the starkest challenges facing the world. Perhaps that’s what is winning it its popularity — consider Squid Game and its class-conscious story of economic struggle, wealth inequality, dehumanization, and desperation. The movie follows a young girl, Jana, who takes shelter with her family in a lighthouse, their only refuge on a small patch of land in the Mediterranean Sea. Stranded and living day to day in hopes of rescue, Jana and her family begin witnessing strange occurrences.
“Jana sees a body bag floating by the shore; her mother hears a radio broadcast confirming dozens of migrants have drowned between Greece and Turkey; their radio breaks, leaving them with no connection to the outside world,” the Netflix synopsis reads. “As they struggle to accept their fates, their circumstances deteriorate.”
With a top-notch cast in Oscar nominee Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, and Zain and Riman Al Rafeea; writing and direction by Brown; and co-writing by Hend Fakhroo and Yassmina Karajah, The Sand Castle is intimate, mysterious, and empathetic, weaving together the family’s past, present, and future.