Arab adventurer lands on Imax screens

The tale of Ibn Battuta, the legendary 14th century Muslim traveller and explorer, is to hit giant Imax screens as the first film of its kind made in the Arab world.

Dima al Ansari says she is "incredibly proud" of being part of The Greatest Journey.

DUBAI // The tale of Ibn Battuta, the legendary 14th century Muslim traveller and explorer from Morocco, is to hit giant Imax screens as the first film of its kind made in the Arab world. The Greatest Journey will be released in the US in November and is then expected to be screened at Imax cinemas around the world. The film, made under the patronage of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, is one of a handful produced in the kingdom.

Dima al Ansari, the co-producer from Dubai-based Desert Door Productions, says she is "incredibly proud" to have taken part in the production. "It is not only significant that we were allowed to film in Saudi, it is almost miraculous," Miss Ansari says. "It is a very pro-Arab, pro-Islam and pro-humanitarian film. More than that, it is such a good message to put out at a time when the world really needs a positive image of Arabs - a time when the news is claiming all Arabs are bad."

The film will show scenery from the region on an unprecedented scale and in greater detail than normal films thanks to Imax's larger screens, better sound systems and precision cameras. Imax screens are usually 16 metres high and 22 metres wide, compared with normal screens that generally measure six metres by 12 metres. The Greatest Journey was filmed during last year's hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

It stars the Moroccan actor Shemseddine Zinoun as Ibn Battuta and follows the explorer's first epic journey from his home in Fez, Morocco, to the hajj, during which he visited Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Persia. It is directed by Bruce Neibaur, who made the Imax epic Lewis and Clark: Great Journey West, the story of the first North American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1804-06.

Miss Ansari says it did not go unnoticed that the actor's first name closely resembles Ibn Battuta's occasional given name, Shams ad-Din. "He really was the best and most appropriate person. He had the perfect face for Ibn Battuta," she says. Some filming took place in the Moroccan city of Agadir and near the Atlas Mountains, a location also used in the Hollywood blockbusters Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven. It was financed with US$15 million (Dh55m) of Saudi and Moroccan money and is still being edited by Imax specialists in Canada.

"It is a famous, famous story through the Arab world, so it is one of the best tales to tell," Miss Ansari says. "It has been done very sensitively. "The film-makers showed real determination and basically parked in Saudi for years to find a way of telling everyone how they saw the film should be done. This is not something that has been done before, and we knew it would end up being an impressive documentation of this area and of the hajj. It was a dream and a challenge that are going to become a reality."

Very few production crews have been allowed to film in Saudi Arabia. The biggest-ever Saudi film, Keif al Hal, by Izidore Musallam, was actually produced in Dubai in 2005. The French-Moroccan production Al-Rihla Al-Kubra (The Big Journey), released in 2004, was the first film made in Mecca. The Austrian documentary Exile Family Movie, which chronicles the reunion in Saudi Arabia of an exiled Iranian family, was also shot in Mecca in 2006.

Only one Hollywood production has received permission to film in Saudi Arabia - Malcolm X, Spike Lee's 1992 biography of the black American leader who converted to Islam. Non-Muslims were not allowed to take part in or be present at the filming of The Greatest Journey in Mecca. Instead, an Arab crew was trained for several months in Canada in the complex skill of filming with Imax cameras, which present special challenges: shots can only last three minutes at a time with the heavy and cumbersome equipment.

The film in Imax cameras is almost 10 times larger than in other movie cameras. The Greatest Journey is expected to be shown at Imax cinemas across the Arab world, including in Dubai, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Miss Ansari says she has been told by industry officials that Abu Dhabi will get an Imax cinema in the future. Aldar, the property developer, refused to comment in May on reports that a giant Imax screen is to be built on Yas Island to show a Ferrari Imax film made in Italy this summer.

Speaking of The Greatest Journey, Miss Ansari says: "This is a beautiful film and message about Islam. The Saudi government agreed it was time for this to happen and more films like this need to be made. "And even though the film-makers were not Arab, they paid attention to every little detail to make sure they were all right." @Email:[e-mail]