A lavish Arabic-language film titled “Sukkar,” that draws inspiration from U.S. writer Jean Webster’s epistolary novel “Daddy-Long-Legs” and is being touted as the Arab world’s first musical movie in the Western canon, is set to release in cinemas across the Middle East and North Africa. Produced by Saudi-owned broadcasting powerhouse MBC Group, which claims it is a first, “Sukkar” is conceived by Kuwaiti writer Heba Mishari Hamada and directed by Egypt’s Tamer Mahdy. It will subsequently play on MBC’s premium Shahid streaming service. It will be interesting to see how it performs at the MENA box office. The film’s lead producer is Samar Akrouk, who is group director of production at MBC Group, along with MBC executive producer Lara Ghazal Nassif and MBC producer Alaa Awada, plus executive producer Tamer Mortada and producer Mostafa Al Awadi from Egypt’s Aroma Productions.
