SYRIA: Soap Opera Production
Ramadan, the Islamic fasting month, is tv time. Only for Ramadan more than 100 new series are produced, about 40 of them used to be produced in Syria. Syria had the second biggest film industry after Egypt. The best and most loved ones are turned - thanks to satellites technology - into a pan-Arab event, full of dreams, traumata, hope and insults. Bab al-Hara "The Neighbourhood's Gate" is one of the most popular television series in the Arab world, watched by tens of millions of people from the nice villa in Saudi Arabia to poor informal areas in Cairo.