MAD Solutions Acquires Arab World Distribution Rights to Dreamaway

Back to Press Releases

Took Part in the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

MAD Solutions Acquires Arab World Distribution Rights to Dreamaway


MAD Solutions has acquired the Arab world distribution rights to the new film Dreamaway by Egyptian director Marouan Omara and German director Johanna Domke. The film is a German-Egyptian co-production. Dreamaway landed its world premiere at the 53rd edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic where it competed within the festival's OFfficial Competition.

Representing freedom and easy cash, Sharm El Sheikh has long been a dream destination for Egyptian youth. Recently, terror attacks have brought tourism in the resort town to a halt. Dreamaway follows a group of young employees of a luxury hotel compound, where clichés and stereotypes of Western and Oriental cultures clash. This carousel-like experience elevates the youths into a dreamlike state.

Directed by Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke, Dreamaway is produced by Roman Roitman, (Monokel/Germany), Mark Lotfy (Fig Leaf Studio/Egypt) and Marouan Omara and Arne Birkenstock (Fruitmarket Kultur und Medien/Germany). The film received the support of from the Doha Film Institute and the Arab Fund for the Arts and Culture (AFAC), in co-production with WDR and supported by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the IDFA Bertha Europe Fund, Catapult Film Fund, Hot Docs Blue Ice Fund, Berlinale Talents Doc Station Prize, Beirut Cinema Platform and Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie Prize.

Marouan Omara is a documentary filmmaker from Egypt. He studied Applied Arts at Helwan University, and filmmaking at the Academy of Cinema, Arts and Technology in Egypt. His work seeks to express a dreamlike notion by exploring the overlap of fiction and reality. He currently teaches Film and Video at the German University in Cairo (GUC) and is an Adjunct Professor in Film Production at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

Johanna Domke is a visual artist and filmmaker from Germany. She studied Fine Arts at the Royal Danish Art Academy and the Malmö Art Academy, and attended the Postgraduate Programme in Film at the Media Art Academy in Cologne. She produces projects that lie in the space where art and cinema meet, with a combined structural and socio-political approach. Her works have received considerable attention at exhibitions and film festivals around the world.