Front Row Productions Boards Zaid Abu Hamdan’s Jordanian Underworld Thriller ‘Boomah’; Rakeen Saad Set To Play Titular Female Thug

Melanie Goodfellow
·2 min read
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Dubai-based Front Row Productions has come on board Jordanian director and producer Zaid Abu Hamdan’s second feature Boomah about a female street thug.

The company, a joint venture between MENA distributors Front Row Filmed Entertainment and Empire Entertainment, is joining forces with Bounce Productions, the film and TV company created by producer Ahmad Abu Koush in 2022.

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Boomah will be Abu Hamdan’s second feature after award-winning 2021 drama Daughters of Abdul-Rahman, which world premiered at the Cairo Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, and then played multiple festivals including the Red Sea Film Festival.

The production has also announced that Jordanian actress Rakeen Saad, who starred in Netflix show AlRawabi School for Girls and MBC Shahid’s The Giza Killer, will play the lead role of Boomah.

Originally announced under the title The Zarqa Girl at the project stage, the production is a described as crime thriller set against the backdrop of one of Jordan’s toughest cities.

Protagonist Boomah is a notorious and knife-savvy female gang member who becomes caught up in a power struggle between street thugs and religious extremists, while battling with the traumas of her harrowing orphaned past.

The feature is scheduled to begin shooting in spring 2024 in Jordan for a planned release in early 2025.

The project previously won the Grand Prize at the Red Sea Lodge in 2021 and the Jordanian Royal Film Commission’s film fund production award in 2022.

Front Row Productions launched with the Arabic adaptation of the Italian smash-hit Perfect Strangers, which topped the Netflix charts in the MENA region when it was released in 2022.

Further upcoming titles on its slate include thriller The Sand Castle, which reunites Nadine Labaki with the Capernaum siblings Zain and Reman Al Rafeea, and also stars Ziad Bakri.

The company is also currently working on Arabic-language adaptations of Korean hit Miracle of Cell No.7 as well as French hit Intouchables.

Boomah marks the first feature production for Bounce.

“Our mission is to create culturally rich, unapologetic and entertaining stories from Jordan and the region,” said Bounce CEO Abu Koush.

Abu Hamdan gave a few more details on the film.

“Boomah delves into themes of love, loss and friendship but most of all, motherhood,” he said. “I am eager to make Boomah a reality and share deeply human and wild stories with the incredible audience again.”said his new film would delve into themes of love, loss and friendship but above all.

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