Lebanese socio-cultural drama series Al Hayba is set for Turkish adaptation in an agreement signed between Lebanese film and TV production company Cedars Art Production and Turkish production houses Ay Yapim, the companies announced today.

The production of the Turkish adaptation of the Lebanese format is set to start early next year.

Now in its fifth season, Al Hayba is set in the fictional border village of Hayba, home to two feuding Arab clans. The show, commissioned by and first aired on MBC, has been licensed for transmission either dubbed or with subtitles to 30 countries and to Netflix which plays the first season on its platform in several territories. Season five is now airing exclusively on MBC and its Shahid VIP premium platform.

Commenting on the deal, Sadek Sabbah, Chairman of Cedars Art Production (Sabbah Brothers) said: “I have always believed that we have amazing relatable stories in our part of the world, which can and will travel around the globe. We are proud to be the first in the world to offer a regional Arabic format for international licensing, however, we are now witnessing an overall rise and improvement in the quality of content being created in our region, so I believe that this is the first of many more to come.”

In 2017, CAP was the first production house to license an Arabic language production to Netflix, the first to distribute Arabic content on a wide scale internationally, and the first to develop a Futuristic -Sci-Fi – survival genre (Hellsgate) in the Arabic language as an OTT original.