MAD World is Arab cinema’s first-ever dedicated global film sales agency – an industry milestone that was detailed separately in three of the world’s leading global entertainment business publications: Variety, Deadline, and Screen Daily ahead of its official launch at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in 2024.

Registered in Dubai, MAD World is one of five affiliate divisions of MAD Solutions, the ground-breaking indie film studio that is headquartered in Cairo.

MAD World hit the ground running with more than a dozen titles — in various production and completion stages — that were entirely new to the international licensing marketplace. Among them are unexpected narratives from Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia that span a multitude of storytelling tones and genres. The slate has been significantly bolstered since then, cementing MAD World’s presence as the global industry’s primary source of exciting new Arab cinematic works.

As well as offering brand new titles, MAD World handles sales on an extensive library of recent festival award-winners, documentary features, acclaimed shorts, back-catalog titles, and regional box office and streaming successes, many of which have not been seen by audiences outside the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). 

MAD World dovetails perfectly with MAD Solutions ambitions to expand Arab cinema’s reach across the global marketplace. In addition to acquiring worldwide rights to more international co-productions, the company has become increasingly involved in packaging Arabic projects with international market potential – a combined push that has given rise to a potent new pipeline of global sales rights for MAD World to handle.

A prime recent example is Morad Mostafa’s AISHA CAN’T FLY AWAY, which met its funding goals and reached completion in record time, winning development awards and support from the likes of the Atlas Workshops, Durban Film Mart, Montpellier, Red Sea Lodge, and CineGouna Funding to name a few. It is also the first Egyptian film to win the top prize at the Final Cut in Venice, where it absolutely cleaned house, winning four other post-production awards; all culminating in its premiere at Cannes 2025 as part of Un Certain Regard, where festivalgoers clamored in front of ticketing booths in the rain to secure their seats.

The success stories don’t end there. Three of MAD World’s titles over the past year — Alaa Eddine Slim’s AGORA, Sylvia Ballyot’s GREEN LINE, and Maha Haj’s short UPSHOT — have collectively won a quintuplet of awards after premiering at the Locarno Film Festival and found similar success in their respective festival runs. 

Two MAD World titles debuted at the Berlinale: Mohamed Rashad’s THE SETTLEMENT and Maja Ajmia Zellama’s TÊTES BRÛLÉES. Sarah Francis’ DEAD DOG premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam. Laila Abbas’ feminist Palestinian heist film THANK YOU FOR BANKING WITH US! made a splash at the BFI London Film Festival. Abdelwahab Shawky’s spiritual short THE LAST MIRACLE opened the El Gouna Film Festival. And Nada Mezni Hafaiedh's TAKE MY BREATH selected to be Tunisia’s official submission to the 97th Academy Awards.

And, right before Cannes, 50 METERS, Yomna Khattab’s heartfelt debut documentary on breaking down barriers between a woman and her father and finding oneself by the poolside, was unveiled at CPH:DOX in Denmark.

MAD World’s creation built on MAD’s success at the 2023 Cannes with the Sudanese Un Certain Regard title GOODBYE JULIA, which scored a raft of sales to territories including France, Benelux, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and German-speaking territories. 

The company also enjoyed sales success with another Cannes festival title, the Directors’ Fortnight short film THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY, which became the first Jordanian film ever sold to the MUBI global streaming platform. 

MAD WORLD is spearheaded by MAD Solutions’ Founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, as well as its third Managing Partner, Colin Brown. All assume Co-President titles at MAD World, with Karkouti serving as CEO. Also part of the team is Jeanne Deny — who assisted the international sales team at SND - Groupe M6 and the acquisitions team at Federation Studios in France — serving as Director of Sales & Acquisitions.