Under the supervision of Kareem Samy, the executive director of MAD Celebrity, Angie Skaik will be managing MAD Crew Celebrity.
MAD Solutions has launched MAD Crew Celebrity, a new unit dedicated to boosting the careers of Arab directors and producers, as well as writers, cinematographers, costume designers, composers and editors.
MAD Crew Celebrity comes after the company in 2020 formed its MAD Rising Celebrity division, dedicated to launching up-and-coming film and TV acting talents from across the Arab world, which in turn was a specialised spin-off of its core MAD Celebrity unit for top-tier acting and TV hosting talents.
MAD Crew Celebrity aims to nurture and burnish the careers of Arab industry professionals in a region where such local representation has been virtually non-existent until now.
Their client list at launch includes top directors Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad (The Mountain Between Us), Egyptian writer-director Mohamed Diab (Moon Knight), Marwan Hamed (Blue Elephant), Ameer Fakher Eldin (The Stranger), Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha (Hedi), Syrian writer-director Ameer Fakher Eldin (Yunan), Shahinaz El-Akkad — CEO of Lagoonie Group (Feathers), to name a few.
Other prominent behind-the-camera talents already on the MAD Crew Celebrity roster include Egyptian showrunner/director/screenwriter Tahmer Mohsen, Cinematographer Ahmad Al Morsy, Egyptian composers Hesham Nazih, Film and TV editor Ahmad Hafez, costume designers Reem El Adl, and Khaled Al-Kammar — an award-winning composer who is Egypt’s first recipient of the Hollywood Music in Media Award, among others.
MAD Crew Celebrity will be managed by Angie Skaik under the oversight of Kareem Samy, Executive Director of MAD Celebrity, one of the five operating divisions at MAD Solutions. Created ten years ago, MAD Celebrity has generated more than four thousand news items and press releases, struck more than 400 deals with media outlets regionally and internationally and helped provide PR and social media services to at least 20 filmmakers.
Speaking about the new unit, Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, co-founders of MAD Solutions, said: “MAD’s mission has always been to provide a promotional and marketing platform for the Arab world’s rich vein of filmmaking artists and artisans that deserve the same level of regional and international recognition as their peers in Europe and Hollywood. With this new division, we can now pay special attention to behind-the-camera talents who would otherwise have to rely on self-publicity and promotion.”
Kareem Samy, Executive Director of MAD Celebrity, added: “Over the past decade at MAD we have enabled numerous filmmakers to act as their own brand ambassadors. MAD Crew Celebrity will take this work even further, shining a spotlight on the often unsung players in the film and entertainment industries throughout the Arab world and beyond whose expertise and ingenuity has helped create so many acknowledged masterpieces.”
Angie Skaik, Manager of Mad Crew Celebrity, stated: “The writers, directors, producers and all the department heads and crew members working behind the camera are the engine for everything we watch and enjoy on our screens. And it is our job and privilege to present these off-screen talents to the world.”
