Matty Brown Talks Breakthrough Netflix Migrant Drama The Sand Castle

The image of the lifeless body of two-year-old Kurdish-Syrian boy Alan Kurdi lying washed up on a Turkish beach shocked the world in September 2015.

His death, alongside that of his mother and brother, came to symbolize the tragedy of the refugee crisis unfolding across the Mediterranean basin in the wake of now deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad’s suppression of a pro-democracy campaign which began in 2011.

U.S. director Matry Brown recounts how he was doubly shaken by the photo because it chimed with a short story he had written while homeless as a child.

“It was based on dream I had where there’s a little boy on an island. His mom and dad were there, but they kind of disappeared. The island is sinking, and the boy doesn’t know how to swim and he’s trying to make sense of what is going on,” he explains.

“The image made me sob my eyes out because that’s the story I wrote when I was homeless but didn’t have an ending, and then suddenly there was this ending, this biblical event happening, of people getting on boats and trying to get across this body of water to freedom,” he says.

This connection would be the catalyst for his debut feature, the migrant drama The Sand Castle, which was revealed by Netflix last month as being the platform’s most watched Arabic-language movie in the first six months of 2025, garnering 10.8M views and 17.4M hours watched by a wide margin.

In rankings, it came around 36 in the non-English movie chart, and 229 in the overall chart covering the 8,860 movies available on Netflix during the period. While coverage of the Netflix data dump rightly focused on the performances of Adolescence and Back In Action, The Sand Castle numbers are also impressive for an Arabic-language arthouse movie.

Lebanese actress and director Nadine Labaki; Zain Al Rafeea, the Syrian refugee star of her Cannes Jury Prize winner and Oscar-nominated film Capernaum; his sister Riman Al Rafeea, and Palestinian actor Ziad Bakri (The Translator, A Stranger’s Case) star as members of a family seemingly marooned on a small sinking island.

How they got there is unexplained, but it is clear their situation is desperate as the parents attempt to make radio-contact with a mysterious entity they hope will pick them up in the face of rising waters and dwindling supplies.

Details of their past life emerge in fragments, with flashbacks to a life destroyed by armed conflict, and a sudden, heartbreaking unveiling of their true predicament in the final minutes of the film.  

Brown reveals that story is told through the traumatized mind of the young daughter.

“It’s a very intimate film. It’s not trying to preach but rather boil down how does a child’s mind react to trauma. We’re basically watching her mind crumble before our eyes,” he says.  

“I couldn’t just go straight into a refugee film because the audience would never watch that, but if you disguise it in this girl’s mind… it’s like an explosion in reverse, you’re in the fog, you don’t know where you are, what’s happening and then slowly by the end it all becomes clear what has really happened.”

The fragmentary and allegorical nature of the storytelling has sparked scores of posts from spectators and film bloggers dissecting what is happening in the film, with some comparing Brown’s work to that of Michel Gondry and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Brown tapped into his own difficult childhood to capture the mechanics of the young girl’s mind as it oscillates between a harsh reality, memory and fantasy.

“I had a pretty tumultuous childhood. I was homeless for much of it, and there was a period of 10 months, when I was about 12 years old, when I on the streets,” he recounts.

“I would lie at school because I thought I would be arrested for being homeless… I was staying in a friend’s carport… trying to track my mom down, going from bar to bar… you have to lie, to build yourself a sort of fortress and live in your imagination to survive.”

The Sand Castle marks Brown’s feature directorial debut after a slew of award-winning short films, including Skipping Stones, The Piano and Dreamcatcher.

He credits longtime friend and the movie’s lead producer Mandy Ward with getting him to write the screenplay and then getting the production over the line.

“Mandy was the seed of the film. She was a cheerleader. She lit a fire under my butt and said, ‘You need to write this, like now, sit down and just write it out… this is such an amazing concept and allegory’,” says Brown.

Ward, who started out in the film business as a location manager, previously produced a handful of Brown’s shorts. She is currently working on post-production for Rachel Israel’s comedy Miracle On 74th Street.

She brought on New York-based producer Houston King and together they set about packaging the film, first setting their sights on Capernaum star Zain Al Rafeea.

Beyond his performance in Labaki’s award-winning film, Al Rafeea’s experiences growing up as a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, before resettling in Norway in 2018, chimed with the story.

This, in turn, introduced the production to Labaki because the actress was the first port of call for connecting with the young actor, who she has continued to mentor.

“She wanted to read it for Zain,” said Ward.

After securing Zain, the production signed Bakri, for the role of the father, after which Labaki’s involvement fell into place.

“Nadine was always poking around. She loved Matty, loved the idea of the script and had been heavily involved in getting Zain attached.  She thought it would be good for Zain’s career and wanted to see him succeed… when the ask went out to her to play the mother, it took a bit, but she said ‘yes’.”

It was at this point, that Gianluca Chakra, CEO of pan-Arab distributor and production company Front Row Film Entertainment came on board. He, in turn, attached Netflix as well as longtime collaborator Mario Jr. Haddad, CEO of pan-Arab distributor Empire Entertainment.

Chakra’s relationship with Labaki as well as with Netflix, for which he had recently produced the hit Arabic-language remake of Perfect Strangers, made him a game-changing partner.

“Gianluca, and I can’t this say enough, became a champion of Matty. This film is hard, and it takes an extraordinary person to push it through the ranks. Luckily, he had a successful film on Netflix, Perfect Strangers, so he had the power to push.”

The next challenge was the shoot, with the feature filming on location in September 2022 on Rabbits Island (aka Palm Island), a nature reserve lying some 3.5 miles (5.5 km) off the coast of the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon.

“When we decided this would be Matty’s first film, I envisaged a shoot in one location, and we end up with kids on an island… it was his dream and maybe a producer’s nightmare,” jokes Ward, who mustered her location manager experience to make it happen.

With the help of local line producer Raja Zgheib, the production secured permission to film on the island once it had been closed to the public at the end of the summer visiting season.

“We were so nervous about these weeks because we had to be on and off the island at a certain time, otherwise you get stuck, but it ended up being this beautiful thing, heading out before sunrise, and returning as the sun was setting,” recalls Ward.

Given Rabbits Island is a nature reserve no trace of the shoot could be left behind.

“The saddest day on set was the day we had to tear down the lighthouse… everybody sat there and cried as we watched it being taken apart.” says Ward.

Brown says he overcame the challenge of shooting in Arabic with human empathy, and ended up being able to speak and understand the language by the end of the production.

“It’s weird because Zain and I, and don’t know if it’s because we’re both Scorpios or what, but we had this connection. Also, Zain has this thing with him that’s crazy: he comes in, does the first take, and it’s like, perfect. It was so smooth with him that he just got it immediately,” recalls Brown.

“He said, ‘Look, I don’t need to act. I’ve already lived this. I know how it feels. I know the emotions.’ He can turn it on and off. It’s incredible what he can do. I hope he just starts taking off like crazy, because he is one of those actors with a range that is unbelievable.”

Aside from celebration, the revelation in Netflix’s July data dump that The Sand Castle was the most-watched Arabic movie on the platform in the first half of 2025 also marks a moment of vindication for Brown and his producers.

The movie originally hit the platform one week after Back in Action on January 24 without fanfare and no press.

“I kept seeing all these big billboards for Back in Action all over town,” says Brown as he reflects on the lack of promotion on his film.

There was no explanation as to why the film was denied press. Brown and his producers have pondered whether it was because the format was not definable enough, or that the subject-matter was seen as a hot potato as President Donald Trump came back into power with a pledge to crackdown on illegal immigration.

Whatever the reason, Chakra sees the film’s success a win-win for all involved.

“Downplayed by many, it connected with millions globally,” he posted in the wake of the data. “It’s a win for everyone pushing bold original Arab content, and a reminder that when we back the right stories, with the right intent, they travel.”