Complex MENA is anchored in creator-first storytelling. Video is not an add-on or a rollout tool. It’s our preferred language and a way to connect, but it’s also documentation.
In an effort to amplify the cultural nuances of the MENA region, creators are placed at the center, hand them the format, and let them define how the story gets told. The camera isn’t observing from an outsider’s gaze. It’s in the room, in the car, in the park, in the studio.
During Complex MENA’s launch phase, and under the creative direction of CHNDY, the visual slate was built with filmmakers who already live inside the scenes they’re documenting. These aren’t glossy tourism edits. They’re insider cuts, layered with local references. The aim wasn’t to explain a city to the outside world. It was to platform the people building them from within.
SIDE QUEST
The flagship series, SIDE QUEST, set the tone. In the films, cities aren’t treated as backdrops, instead we worked with several filmmakers to bring to life the Complex MENA pillars in their city.
In Riyadh, filmmaker Okasha centers Al Futah Park, a space known for rap cyphers, football pick ups, and breakdancing and treats it like what it is: a cultural meeting point. The film doesn’t manufacture a scene. It taps into one that has existed for decades, while also showing the progress of Saudi.
In Cairo, Omar Elkafrawy shoots from the driver’s seat, pulling in photographers, stylists, rappers, designers, dancers, and nearly three dozen creatives who have all made an impact in their respective practices. In the film, Omar’s car becomes a temporary studio, a rolling green room for the city’s creative class. Each stop is less an interview and more a co-sign, a snapshot of who’s moving the needle right now.
In Marrakech, NB2WN and SOMNII CULTR anchor their film in a street-level perspective that slips naturally into the world of iconic creative director and photographer, Hassan Hajjaj. The result is a quiet conversation between generations. A nod from the present to the past. A reminder that Morocco’s creative lineage is not static. It is evolving, constantly reinterpreting itself.
SIDE QUEST will continue as an ongoing quarterly series, with each edition spotlighting a new regional filmmaker and their city, expanding the network and deepening the archive one film at a time.
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Alongside SIDE QUEST, Saudi artist, Embee’s animated launch film brings the platform’s pillars into conversation without over-explaining them. The piece prioritises tone, energy, and feeling rather than over hand-holding. The film trusts the audience to connect the dots within the Complex MENA universe.
Original IPs, Local Voices, Real Reach
This is the wider vision. Build formats that creators can step into and reshape. Develop series that feel native to the region, not templated. Expand the network so that sneaker collectors, runners, DJs, chefs, and freestylers aren’t just subjects, they’re collaborators.
This will continue to play out, through original video IPs, editorial storytelling, social curation, and community-first programming across TikTok, Instagram, Snap, and YouTube, the platform spotlights the figures shaping music, film, sports, style, and the digital world.
GOAT Talk: Where legends name legends anchors the rollout, cutting across music, sports, sneakers, and film as culture’s biggest names crown their GOATs and argue the debates that actually matter. Each episode pairs artists with collaborators, peers, or friends.
Also in the franchise lineup is TRUE STORY, where artists and creators unpack pivotal moments behind an album, film, or personal life, straight from the source. RANKED rounds out the slate, asking artists to order the things that define them across music and fashion, food, pop culture, and their own catalog.
TURNING POINTS is a Complex MENA original: a stripped-back social series where artists, athletes, and creators revisit three pivotal moments that reshaped their path.
Complex MENA publishes social and video content in both Arabic and English, reflecting the region’s many dialects and lived voices, while anchoring long-form storytelling through its English-language platform. It is building alongside its community. Video is the engine. Creators are the center. Everything else follows.
