'Its both epic in its expanse and intimate in its scope.'
Matthew Millan
Director / Cinematographer
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Three ordinary women, one British and two Omani, embark on a gruelling expedition to become the first modern women to cross the vast stretch of barren waste in the heart of the Arabian desert, known as Rub’ al Khali or The Empty Quarter.
With a male British and Omani crew in support, the women walk 758 kilometers, the equivalent distance of London to Switzerland, over 28 days with a clear objective: To challenge prejudices, breakdown stereotypes, and to deliver a message to the world that we are “better together” regardless of culture, gender or identity differences.
Yet as they press onward through this land of dreams, the journey forces the three women to dig into the deepest recesses of their resolve to face not only the most hostile of environments in one of the most remote corners of the world, but also the specters of their past
It is an exceedingly rare thing to have a once-in-a-lifetime project fall into your lap.
Yet this is precisely what happened to me when Janey asked me to co-direct the film about an epic expedition across the Empty Quarter, a particularly hostile and sere stretch of the desolate Arabian Desert. And within two days of agreeing to take on the task, I was on my way to Oman.
I was initially drawn to the expedition because of its groundbreaking nature: three women, two of which were Arab, working together in a cross-cultural exchange to traverse 750 kilometers of empty, sun-hammered expanse. Yet that proved to be a mere sand particle in a much greater, and more personal story about these women of wildly different backgrounds…a profile of the modern woman waging a battle against the inertia of both her personal past and the culture from which she came to chart her own course in life.
Arrowhead is both epic in its expanse, and intimate in its scope. It is both an exploration of this mystical land, and of the very personal journey that these intrepid women take to discover who they really are.
It has been one of the greatest honours of my life to help bring this story to the wider world.
