Happy Productions produces documentary-style video for NGOs, foundations and relief organizations with programs across the Middle East and North Africa. We've filmed a leadership convening in Doha, a community workshop in Ramallah and a field production in Syria, and delivered humanitarian field footage from Sudan, each time with a vetted local crew on the ground, our producer on the brief and our editors on the cut. No crew flown in on a compressed schedule. No footage that puts anyone at risk.
Book a 20-min consult20 minutes. No pitch deck. You leave with a plan for your programs in the Middle East and North Africa, whether or not we work together.
Organizations working across the region carry some of the most urgent stories anywhere, and some of the hardest to film well. Sound familiar?
Your team filmed the distribution and the training. Faces that can't be shown, names that can't be said, and no one on staff with the time to cut around it.
Travel approvals, security briefings, insurance. The comms lead gets in once, if at all, and that b-roll has to carry every appeal until the next window.
A visiting crew doesn't know which neighborhood to avoid, which official to greet first, or when to put the camera down. A local one does.
Dust, sad strings, a slow-motion child. Your program officers cringe. Your partners in Beirut know it wasn't made by anyone who knows Beirut.
A local videographer in Doha or Amman who has filmed for NGOs before, briefed by our producer and edited by our team, gets you footage a visiting crew can't, and gets it without putting a single participant at risk.
Three steps. Your country team gets one WhatsApp group, one shot list in Arabic and English, and one production day, not a film crew to host.
A 45-minute call with your program, comms and security leads. Our producer writes the shot list, the interview questions and the consent and anonymity approach, in Arabic and English, then books a videographer we've vetted in-country: portfolio, reel, references, a live video call.
One production day where the work happens: interviews, observational footage, the moments in between, with faces hidden where they need to be. Our producer is on WhatsApp with the crew from call time to wrap, and the footage lands in a shared folder you own within days.
Our editors cut a hero film plus vertical short-form for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, subtitled in Arabic and English. When the story fits and your team agrees, we feature it to the Are You Happy? audience of 200 million viewers a year.
In February 2026 a local Doha crew filmed a three-day leadership convening for Search for Common Ground, with country directors from across the region interviewed on set. In April a local videographer covered a training workshop in Ramallah. In Syria we filmed a field production for the same organisation, cut into the same pipeline as their Doha and Ramallah work. In March a local crew delivered humanitarian field footage from Sudan for Baitulmaal. If your programs run anywhere below, we can staff a shoot there.
recent field productions across the region — Doha, Ramallah, Syria and Sudan — every one with a local crew, our producer on the brief and a consent plan agreed with the client before anyone pressed record.
Headquartered in Dubai, Doha, Riyadh, Amman, Beirut or Cairo? We work with organizations based in the Middle East and North Africa the same way: a local crew we've vetted, our producer on the brief, our editors on the cut, and distribution through the Are You Happy? audience when the story fits. Time zones are our normal.
Every image on this page is from a shoot we produced — stills from our photographers and frames pulled from the footage itself. No stock, no library, no other agency's work.
A two-day leadership convening, filmed by a Doha production crew. Country directors from across the region were interviewed on one set, in one lighting set-up, giving the whole region one visual language. The still frames pulled from those interviews became the organisation's headshots — no second crew day, no separate portrait session — and the footage went on to be the foundation of their rebuilt brand film.
Not stock. Not a single trip stretched across a year. Field productions, shot locally, cut by us.
Reach figures are organic, reported by clients or measured on the Are You Happy? channels. Detailed metrics are shared on the call.
“We're living in a world where video is king. And we can't just up and travel to get the content that we need. So Happy Productions was an answered prayer that fell in our lap.”
Kalindi Cordero, Search for Common Ground
Every production in this region starts with the consent and safety plan, not the shot list. Here is what we have actually filmed.
A two-day leadership convening in February 2026 for Search for Common Ground, filmed by a Doha production crew with a local cameraman. Country directors from across the region were interviewed on one set, and the still frames pulled from those interviews became the organisation's headshots — no second crew day, no separate portrait session. That footage went on to be the foundation of their rebuilt brand film and a monthly-donor campaign.
April 2026: a training workshop, a single-subject interview in Arabic, and hours of Ramallah street and city footage. The client's own insight drove the edit — positive, dignified imagery of the city is rare and therefore valuable, so a later version was rebuilt to lead with it. Faces are hidden where flagged, participants sign off personally before public release, and the multipartial framing is not negotiable on this account.
Syria is the clearest case for how we staff this region: a vetted local videographer, briefed by our producer, feeding the same post pipeline as the Doha and Ramallah work. For Search for Common Ground we filmed a long-form Arabic-language case study in As-Suwayda — part of the Common Ground Leadership Academy series alongside South Sudan and Sierra Leone — and cut it into a sixteen-minute documentary plus vertical and 16:9 teasers. Subtitles ship as separate English and French versions rather than stacked on one frame, and every translation is spot-checked at several points across the full runtime, not just the opening minute where most subtitle QA stops. Who can be identified, what can be geolocated and what never leaves the drive are agreed with your team before a camera is booked.
Humanitarian field footage for Baitulmaal, briefed and shot at the end of March 2026 and confirmed in the client's editor's hands within three days. We were the field half of that job by design; their in-house team cut it.
Some of what we film cannot be shown. On one convening, participants from Afghanistan and Palestine were filmed without faces, names or organisations regardless of individual consent, because the risk sits with them and not with us. Release forms are signed in the subject's own language, subjects review anything sensitive before it goes live, and your safeguarding policy overrides our defaults every time.
Our network reaches Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Türkiye, Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. Tell us the country and the sensitivity, and we will tell you plainly whether we can staff it well or whether you should wait.
One production day becomes a library: the hero film for the gala, the 45-second cut for the emergency appeal, a dozen verticals for the feed, and the two-minute piece in Arabic your partners will actually share.
There is no per-video menu on this page on purpose. Every program, country and season is different, so we scope on the call and send a written plan the same day.
One call with our producer. Bring the two or three stories you know you're sitting on and the dates already on your calendar. You'll leave with a written plan for filming in the Middle East and North Africa: which stories, which crew, what it takes, and what it costs. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you on the call.
Locally. We source and vet a videographer or small crew in the country where your program runs, brief them with a written shot list and a live call, and our producer directs remotely on the day. In Doha that was a three-person local crew; in Ramallah, a local videographer who knew the venue.
We agree a consent and anonymity plan with you before the shoot: who can be shown, who is filmed from behind or in silhouette, which names and organizations never appear. Release forms are in Arabic and signed before the interview. Subjects review anything sensitive before it goes live, and your security team has the final word.
Interviews run in the language the subject is most comfortable in: Arabic, French, Kurdish, Turkish, English. Every cut ships subtitled, and we deliver Arabic and English versions from the same shoot when your offices need both.
Often, because we don't travel: a local crew that already lives and works there does, under your organization's security guidance. We say no when the risk to the crew or the participants isn't worth it, and we'll tell you that on the first call.
Most shoots book within two to three weeks of the brief; emergency appeals can move faster when a local crew is already in place. Footage lands in your shared folder within a few days, first cuts follow in about two weeks, and revisions run through a review link.
You do: raw footage and finished films. We keep the right to show the work in our portfolio, with your approval, and we never publish anything from the region without your sign-off.
Yes. Foundations, national NGOs and CSR teams in Dubai, Doha, Riyadh, Amman, Beirut and Cairo get the same model: local crew, our producer, our editors, and distribution through the Are You Happy? audience when the story fits.
Absolutely. Send us a link and we'll cut it, faces hidden where needed. If a drive full of unused field footage is your main problem, start with our free first edit at happyproductions.me/footage.
Book a 20-minute consult. We'll map the two or three stories you're sitting on across your programs, tell you exactly what a shoot there takes, and give you a plan you can use whether or not you hire us.
20 minutes · No pitch deck · A written plan either way
P.S. Ramadan is closer than it looks. The appeal that raises the most is the one filmed before the season starts.
