Beirut, April, 2021: Spring Entertainment ™, the award-winning production arm of Spring Communications, is proud to announce the launch of Alephia 2053 on Youtube, an animated thriller set in dystopian Alephia, a fictional Arab country in the year 2053.
Created by Rabi’ Sweidan and Directed by Jorj Abou Mhaya, Alephia 2053 is the story of three individuals in a race against time, and each other, to deal with the source of a cyber-attack that has infiltrated the most secure surveillance systems of the most sophisticated authoritarian regime in history.
Developed to be primarily shown on streaming platforms, the movie and its hosting website alephia.xyz allow the viewer to explore and experience life in dystopian fictional Alephia in the year 2053.
“Alephia 2053 is the first animated movie, and the only entertainment work in Arabic that looks at an imagined possible future. We have thousands of hours of entertainment across the Middle East that re-imagine, and sometimes create a false, glorious past; yet nothing about the future.” Creator and Executive Producer Rabi’ Sweidan explained. “Having grown up on a steady diet of comic books and dystopian literature, we wanted to use animation to tell our story. We engaged the fabulous talent we have in Lebanon to develop something unique to the Middle East. With over 1.2 Million views in the first 5 days of launching the movie, we hope to have broken through.”
Jorj Abou Mhaya, the director and illustrator, described the illustration process behind the film, which he says was rooted in “creating characters that are easy to animate with backgrounds where props and elements can be duplicated, without compromising the compositions and layouts, and mostly avoiding obvious visual patterns to maintain a design that is appealing to viewers. By breaking out of the standard mold, Alephia 2053 became a breakthrough for animated productions across the Middle East and Arab speaking world”.
Meanwhile, Executive Producer Marwan Harb noted the will of “breaking out of the one size fits all animation style out there. So, unlike other mega budget animation attempts in the Middle East, Alephia 2053’s relied on local talent. Character design, branding, the graphics of the animation, were all done by Lebanese talent. The music score was done by the amazing Karim Khneisser and voice talents included renowned actors Khaled Al Sayed, Ali Saad and Gihan Malla.”
Alephia 2053 is the second big creative breakthrough for Spring Entertainment. It follows the global success of Bidoun Kaid, the multi-award winning web series. Bidoun Kaid was the Middle East’s first interactive viewing experience.
Spring Entertainment ™ is the production arm of Spring Communications, a purpose driven, award winning creative firm.
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