Crossroads

Our never-ending quest to investigate the business and pleasure of all the arts and entertainment industries throughout the region and around the globe continues apace! This week we set our sights on the world of concept art: our guest is Talal Al Najarr, part of a new generation of contemporary Emirati artists emerging in the "digital-age Gulf." His experimental work blends sculpture, CGI, video, installation, sound, and archival imagery, to explore themes like simulation, identity, postmodern culture, absurdism and distorted material culture, and is featured in several shows and installations right now across Arts Week.Works mentioned in this week's discussion include: Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word, Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, and Camille Paglia's Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars

This week, Crossroads co-hosts Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh welcome Dana Alhanbali, writer, entrepreneur, and founder of Bark & Berg.In a world shaped by AI, endless content, and constantly shifting audiences, we explore how storytelling has evolved beyond entertainment to become a powerful tool for branding, communication, and building ideas. From creative strategy and original IPs to the collaborative energy of writers’ rooms, Dana shares how stories can shape businesses, connect teams, and turn concepts into something with real impact.We also dive into the fine art of pitching, not simply as a way of selling, but as the ability to communicate ideas clearly enough to make others believe in them. Together, we discuss the balance between creativity and entrepreneurship, and why storytelling may be one of the most valuable business tools of our time.

It’s a full-circle moment with a clear shift in focus. Our very first guest, Ammar Galal, returns — but this time, the conversation is driven by the news itself. Co-host Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh reconnect with Ammar to explore the UAE Creative Community, a new initiative he has launched aimed at bringing together and supporting the creative community in the UAE. The discussion moves beyond the individual, focusing on a growing collective and how the creative industry has been reshaped in recent months.This episode captures a moment of full support within the creative industry, exploring a community built to respond to creative needs, offering a space that goes beyond exposure and collaboration to provide real, ongoing support for creatives navigating this shift.

This week, we're honored to welcome Tala Badri, founder of Dubai's Centre for Musical Arts (CMA), which is making music education more accessible than ever in its landmark twentieth season. With increased focus on mental health and cultural enrichment in the UAE, there is no art form more guaranteed to bring people together in a healthy and healing way than music.Tala joins the show to discuss how music and the work at her Centre can soothe and stimulate, and we explore why the arts are thriving here while facing so many challenges elsewhere.

Sharjah-based filmmaker and lecturer Mohammed Mamdouh joins David Tully to discuss the international ascent of his latest film, Halal Dreams. Now competing at the prestigious Seattle International Film Festival, Mamdouh explores the future trajectory of UAE cinema and the creative resilience required when teaching filmmaking during global disruptions.

On this week’s episode, our focus is on spirituality in storytelling: in tackling the topic, we are honoured to welcome legendary storyteller J.M. DeMatteis, who has chronicled the adventures of everyone from Batman to Scooby-Doo to Spiderman on TV and in print, while also crafting a series of award-winning, best-selling original comics and novels. In discussing his new novel Dark Future, we examine how the best stories are the ones that remind us of the Perennial Philosophy, and how that can help us all face and change a dark future that just may be our present.JM’s novel Dark Future, published by NeoText Books, is available now on Amazonhttps://www.jmdematteis.com/Works Discussed: The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley, God Bless You Mister Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

On this week’s episode, Dr David Tully and Deema Maghalseh of Middlesex University Dubai welcome award-winning filmmaker Razan Takash, who speaks not only about her new “Best of Fest” HollyShorts Film Festival champ Karayr Film (which she wrote and produced), but also gives us invaluable insight into how precisely a film makes it from first idea through execution, to a possible finish line at the Oscars.Hint: it’s not always the best picture that wins Best Picture!

On an unusual episode in an unusual time at an unusual place, Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh of Middlesex University Dubai welcome novelist, filmmaker and writing coach Daniela Tully, who talks with us about her timely Dubai-set novel, her upcoming writer's retreat, and the challenges and rewards of writing in a troubled era.

On this episode of Crossroads, co-hosts Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh are joined by author, lecturer, and social scientist Donya Saberi to discuss her memoir The Quiet Revolution. The book shares the story of an Iranian woman navigating heartbreak and societal pressures in Dubai, while offering reflections that go beyond personal experience. Blending memoir with elements of self-help, it turns lived pain into an empowering narrative. Together, they explore the craft of the “misery memoir” and ask when private suffering becomes something larger than the individual.

This week on Crossroads, Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh of Middlesex University Dubai are joined by filmmaker and author Adolf El Assal, an Egyptian-Luxembourgish resident of the UAE. He discusses how his projects (including Sawah, which reached the number one spot on Netflix) have attracted large and devoted audiences in countries as diverse as China and Egypt, thanks to the humour inherent in his dramatic explorations of the cross-cultural experience.

On today’s episode, co-hosts Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh are joined by Philip Rachid, an award-winning filmmaker and a pivotal voice for the third-culture generation. We explore his multimedia project The Main Circle, his short-film portraits SHE, and the growing demand for industry spaces that nurture emerging storytellers shaped by life between worlds.We also reflect on what it means to develop a distinct creative voice in the in-between, when you don’t fully belong here or there.

In conversation with David Tully and Deema Maghalseh is A-list Hollywood producer and Emmy-nominated actor Elijah Long, whose credits include Rambo: Last Blood, Tesla, Black Panther, and the upcoming All-Star Weekend.Alongside his Hollywood achievements, we explore his latest venture — WOW3 Media, a Dubai-based pop culture and content brand built around the slogan, “Where Eastern Pop Culture Lives.”This conversation moves beyond film credits to examine a much bigger question: What does it truly take for a city to become a pop culture capital? Can Dubai build the infrastructure, creative ecosystem, and international networks required to export culture in the way Hollywood once did — positioning itself as a global hub for cultural production and distribution?

Joining David Tully and Deema Maghalseh on Mira Business FM is the remarkable Ilvy Njiokiktjien, a multi-award-winning photojournalist with nearly two decades of experience documenting post-apartheid South Africa. Her work, Born Free – Mandela’s Generation of Hope, was featured at the landmark 10th edition of the Xposure International Photography Festival in Sharjah.Here, we discuss what it means to be a photojournalist, a storyteller of truth, in an era when it’s getting harder to trust what we see.Find her fantastic work at https://www.ilvynjiokiktjien.com/

In today's episode, our guest Tewe Pannier, Founder and CEO of GTV Film Productions and Paradox Studios here in Dubai, shares insights from his production companies' current practices, offering a grounded look at how AI is being plored, tested, and integrated across different stages of film production. 

What roads can you take into filmmaking — and what does the industry actually demand along the way?In our historic first episode, David Tully and Deema Maghalseh welcome multi-award-winning film director, producer, and educator Ammar Galal to unpack a journey that goes far beyond career change. From oil rigs to Oscar-contending cinema, Ammar reflects on how technical thinking, risk assessment, and professional discipline translate into creative industries — and what filmmakers today need to understand about navigating film as both an art form and an industry/ career.