We spoke about the 1st United Arab emirates based action film called Abdulla Omar and the Lost City of Sand. (the link to the audio is below)

Why this conversation was very interesting to me was becasue it was the issue of bridging culture and commerce in the film industry that occupied a 9 year span of my life as I completed my doctoral dissertation.

The question I have been asking ever since successfully defending my doctorate is very simply, ‘what stops us from wanting to outright fuse culture and commerce in a popular format?’

Nothing I suspect, but, we tend to feel that culture is a protected ground and to fuse it to commerce is in some way cheapening it.

You tell me? Is Michael-Ryan Fletchall on to the way to make culture relevent in a popular and profit generating format?

There are many ways to create relevant cultural expression and there is no time like the present in the UAE to start experimenting and inventing those means.

It has been 8 years since I gave any real thought to what and why I wrote my doctoral dissertation and thanks to Michael-Ryan Fletchall and Abdulla Omar, the soon to be movie, it has all come rushing back with reason, purpose and need.