Ahmed Mourad Screenwriting Retreat — Dahab
with Ahmed Mourad
Reserve your spot
Ahmed Mourad Screenwriting Retreat — Dahab
The experience.
Every screenplay starts with an idea that refuses to leave you alone. Spend five focused days in Dahab with acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Ahmed Mourad, developing that idea into a story with shape, direction and cinematic potential. Through practical writing, film analysis and direct discussion, you’ll work on the foundations of your screenplay — from the logline and core premise to character development, dramatic structure, treatment and scene breakdown. And the work doesn’t stop when the retreat ends. You’ll have 40 days to complete and submit your screenplay, then receive a written evaluation from Ahmed Mourad with feedback on the text and guidance on how to take it further. Limited seats are available to keep the experience focused, personal and genuinely useful for every participant.
Every memorable film begins somewhere small.
A character. A question. An image you can’t stop thinking about. Or simply an idea that keeps returning until you finally decide to write it.
For five days in Dahab, you’ll step away from the pace and distractions of everyday life and give that idea your full attention.
Led by acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Ahmed Mourad, this intensive screenwriting retreat is built around one purpose: helping you understand your story, shape it and move it forward.
This is not a series of passive lectures.
You’ll be writing, questioning, rebuilding, discussing and applying what you learn directly to your own project.
Set between the Red Sea and the mountains of Sinai, the retreat creates the kind of space that writing rarely gets in everyday life — uninterrupted time to think, experiment, watch, discuss and write.
Across five days, you’ll move through the essential stages of developing a screenplay.
DAY 1 — LOGLINE & PREMISE
Before building a screenplay, you need to understand what your story is really about.
The first day is about finding the core of your idea and learning how to express it clearly.
You’ll work on creating a strong logline, identifying the central dramatic question and developing your initial idea into a clear premise that can carry a full story.
Through practical exercises and examples from cinema, you’ll begin testing the strength and direction of your own project.
DAY 2 — CHARACTER FILE
Stories become memorable when their characters feel alive.
The second day focuses on building characters with real motivations, contradictions, desires, fears and conflicts.
You’ll explore what drives your protagonist, what stands in their way and how supporting characters contribute to the dramatic world of the story.
By the end of the session, you’ll have a clearer understanding of who your characters are — and why we should care about what happens to them.
DAY 3 — DRAMATIC CURVE
A strong idea and interesting characters are not enough on their own.
A screenplay needs movement.
On Day Three, you’ll work on the dramatic journey of your story: internal and external conflict, escalation, turning points and the relationship between character development and plot.
Through film analysis and practical exercises, you’ll begin mapping the dramatic curve of your own screenplay and understanding how tension is created and sustained.
DAY 4 — TREATMENT
Now the pieces begin to come together.
The fourth day focuses on moving from individual ideas, characters and dramatic moments into a complete cinematic treatment.
You’ll work on the beginning, middle and ending of your story, organize the main events and learn how to maintain clarity, rhythm and dramatic progression.
This is where your screenplay starts to become a complete journey rather than a collection of good ideas.
DAY 5 — SCENE BREAKDOWN
On the final day, the story moves closer to the page.
You’ll learn how to break the treatment into scenes and sequences, decide what each scene needs to achieve and understand how scenes connect to create rhythm and momentum.
The session also explores dialogue, visual storytelling, tension and scene construction.
You’ll begin writing and discussing scenes, with practical feedback that helps you take the next step into the actual screenplay.
THE WORK HAPPENS EVERY DAY
The retreat is designed around practice.
Every day includes writing exercises, film analysis, conversation and discussion of participants’ work.
You won’t simply hear about screenwriting techniques. You’ll use them on your own story as it develops throughout the five days.
There will also be space outside the main sessions to write, think, exchange ideas and reconnect with your project in an environment far removed from the routine of the city.
THE 40-DAY SCREENPLAY CHALLENGE
Day Five is not the end.
It is the point where the next stage begins.
After the retreat, you’ll have 40 days to continue developing your project and complete your screenplay.
Once the screenplay is submitted, Ahmed Mourad will provide a written evaluation of the text, including feedback on its strengths, areas that need further work and guidance for the next stage of development.
The goal is simple:
Not to leave Dahab with another notebook full of ideas.
But to leave knowing what you are writing — and how to continue.
Five days to build the story. Forty days to write it.
Limited seats are available to preserve the focus of the retreat and create enough space for meaningful discussion, practical work and close creative guidance.
Ahmed Mourad
Ahmed Mourad is an acclaimed Egyptian novelist, screenwriter and film consultant, and one of the most influential contemporary storytellers in the Arab world.
Born in Cairo in 1978, Mourad graduated with honors from the Higher Institute of Cinema in 2001, where he studied cinematography. That cinematic background remains at the heart of his writing — in the way he builds atmosphere, visual detail, psychological tension, character and dramatic rhythm.
He began his literary career with Vertigo in 2007, followed by major works including Diamond Dust, The Blue Elephant, 1919, The Land of God, Deer Hunting Season, Locanda Ber El Wataweet and Abo El-Hol / Sphinx.
His stories have repeatedly moved from the page to the screen.
Mourad wrote the screenplays for several major Egyptian films, including The Blue Elephant I & II, The Originals, Diamond Dust and Kira & El Gin. His cinematic work also includes EL-Sett, inspired by the life and legacy of Umm Kulthum, while he is currently working on The Blue Elephant III.
The Blue Elephant was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014 and became a major bestseller, while Mourad received Egypt’s State Excellence Award for Literature in 2018. His work has also received international recognition, including the Mediterranean Culture Award for Vertigo in Italy.
In 2022, he published Killing for Beginners, a practical cinematic guide to storytelling and screenwriting, exploring character development, dramatic structure, plot and scene construction.
Teaching has also become an important part of Mourad’s work. Since 2016, he has led writing and screenwriting workshops across Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Jordan, with more than 326 students graduating from his workshops.
What makes this retreat different is the opportunity to learn from a writer who understands storytelling from more than one side — as a novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker.
A storyteller who has lived the full journey of an idea: from the first page, to the screenplay, to the cinema screen.
Inside SA Studios.
A glimpse of the real space in Dahab where the event takes place.
