From the early days in the 1980’s when only a handful of movies were being made, to the present, Jordan has seen some 150 films and TV series shot on its territory, bringing in half a billion dollars of foreign currency. Much of this is due to the creation of the Royal Film Commission (RJC) and the foresight with which it has been run, especially its stress on film education that will drive the industry into the future. While regional conflicts and the Covid pandemic have seen an ebb and flow of foreign productions – and the current moment is no exception – the RJC has found a way to ride out the waves, continuing to build sound stages, offering free public screenings all year long, and expanding its many educational programs in a patient game of waiting out the ill winds. It is one of the sponsors of the Amman International Film Festival.
Founded in 2003, Jordan’s film commission is a financially and administratively autonomous government organization led by a board of commissioners and chaired by Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, with the aim of developing an internationally competitive audio-visual industry in the country. It is a member of the Association of Film Commissioners International and received the Location Managers Guild Award for Outstanding Film Commission in 2017 for its work on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story filmed in the Wadi Rum desert. Other sci fi spectaculars that have tramped through its sands include The Martian and both parts of Dune, along with many other famous titles like David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, shot on the real locations of the story.
Now a new scale of cash rebates has recently gone into effect that will offer foreign production companies up to 45% back on the money the spend. It should hep offset the lull in activity caused by the recent hostilities between Iran and Israel. Though Jordan itself is not at war, it has shot down missiles and drones passing over its airspace. The RFC, for the time being, has shifted its attention to preparing for the future.
As Mohannad Al Bakri, the managing director of the RJC, describes it to The Film Verdict, it’s been twenty years since Jordan entered its modern era of filmmaking, counting the fruitful partnership between the Royal Film Commission and the Sundance Institute as a starting point. When the Rawi Screenwriters Lab opened in Jordan, it marked a turning point for filmmaking in the region. Two feature films came out of the inaugural Lab in 2005 and premiered at Sundance – Najwa Najjar’s Pomegranates and Myrrh (Palestine) and Cherien Dabis’s Amreeka (Palestine/Jordan/U.S.) In 2012, another Rawi alumna premiered her first feature at Venice: the ground-breaking Wadjda by Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour. In all, 29 regional films have come out of the Rawi Screenplay Lab produced by 15 Arab countries, a resource for the whole region.
Interestingly, the focus is on the creative storytelling side of the business rather than the technical aspects. Today the Labs extend to television writing, producer training and, with the Mosaic program, first- and second-time directors.
Along with the screenwriting labs, which now are held in eco-lodges in the spartan desert landscape of Jordan’s deep south, facilities for production and post-production have sprung up. The newest of these, built during the difficult Covid years, are two state-of-the-art film and TV studios in Amman called Olivewood. Overseen from a futuristic control room by Operations and Production Advisor Khaldoun Abumsallam, the two identical 1,500-square meter sound stages are flanked by wardrobe, hair and makeup and carpentry areas, along with considerable outdoor space for shooting.
Throughout the Commission’s existence, notes Al Bakri, “the royal family has been tremendously supportive. The studio was built on a proposal by His Majesty. It completes our film industry.”
