‘TaleFlick’s Uri Singer Invites Saudi Arabian Storytellers to Hollywood’

TaleFlick, the online story discovery platform founded by “White Noise” producer Uri Singer and former Netflix executive George Berry, is now accepting poetry submissions. This initiative seeks to capture the essence, history, and vibrant traditions of Saudi Arabian culture.

Historically, storytelling in the Arab world has relied heavily on oral history and poetry. TaleFlick aims to connect Saudi poems with Hollywood by providing poets a global platform to present their work to producers and studios.

“Poetry is the heartbeat of Saudi Arabian culture, resonating deeply with its people and heritage,” says Singer, TaleFlick’s CEO. “By embracing poems, we aim to honor and elevate this beautiful art form, providing a platform to transform these stories into powerful visual narratives.”

TaleFlick, which initially featured fiction and non-fiction novels and screenplays, is expanding to include poetry from around the globe. This move will enable poets from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to share their unique voices and stories with a worldwide audience.

The submitted poems will be curated and showcased to a network of studios and producers, offering a unique opportunity for these poetic works to be adapted into films, TV series, and other forms of visual storytelling. Poets can look forward to having their work available to producers worldwide.

Singer highlighted that Saudi poems can be submitted in Arabic, benefiting from TaleFlick’s team of translators and poets originally from the region. The submission process is completely free of charge.

One year ago, TaleFlick broadened its horizons by accepting submissions not only in English but also in Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean. This expansion allowed a larger, more diverse pool of writers to showcase their talents.

The platform’s next step is to select participants from the submitted poems for a reality TV show called “House of Poems.” This concept is inspired by “The Million’s Poet,” a popular Middle Eastern show similar to “American Idol” that has captivated millions of viewers since 2007.

The connection between poetry and cinema in the Middle East is already well established. A recent example is Mohamed Al Salman’s absurdist drama “Raven Song,” which was Saudi Arabia’s submission for the Academy Awards last year. The film revolves around Nasser, a young man diagnosed with a brain tumor who uses a love poem to express his feelings to an enigmatic woman.

Singer, who attended Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival last year and plans to return, is a prolific producer known for “Marjorie Prime,” “White Noise,” and “Tesla.” His upcoming projects include Palestinian director Maysaloun Hamoud’s female revenge thriller “Beretta” and British director Jon Amiel’s “Sands of Fortune,” which explores the origins of Saudi oil.

Source: Variety, IMG, Front Row Productions