Badiei: An Arabic Magazine for Film and Television Criticism
Badiei is an Arabic magazine of long-form film and television criticism, built for the critic Hossam El-din El-Sayed. It is named after Mr. Badiei of Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry. The magazine publishes essay-length readings of Egyptian, Arabic and world cinema alongside prestige television drama, from Atef El-Tayeb and Khairy Beshara to The Sopranos and Succession. Most publishing tools are built for short posts; this one is built for essays that people sit down to read. Behind it sits everything a magazine needs to run itself: a proper writing tool, Arabic search that works the way Arabic is actually typed, comment moderation, a newsletter, per-article readership figures, and a site whose logo, colours and announcements the editor changes without touching code.
Built for long reading
- Typography made for Arabic essays: The reading layout is designed right-to-left for pieces of real length, not for short posts stretched out.
- Sections that reflect the writing: Arabic Cinema, Foreign Cinema, Arabic Drama, Foreign Drama and Assorted Reviews, each named in both Arabic and English and reordered or hidden by the editor.
- Reading time shown up front: Each article carries its reading time, so a reader knows what they are committing to.
- Featured and most-read: Separate pages for featured essays, the latest publications and the pieces readers return to.
- Publish on your own schedule: Articles are drafted, dated and released deliberately rather than the moment they are finished.
Writing and publishing
- An article built from blocks: Text, headings, pull-quotes, images, embedded clips and dividers are placed as separate pieces, so a long essay stays organised while it is being written.
- Quotations with their attribution: Pull-quotes carry their own attribution field, used constantly for citing writers, directors and film dialogue.
- Stills placed mid-essay: Images and film stills sit inside the article with captions, where the argument needs them.
- Covers with captions and alt text: Every article has a cover image, described properly for readers and search engines.
- Images optimised automatically: Uploaded pictures are compressed and delivered in a modern format, so an article full of stills still loads quickly.
Finding articles in Arabic
- Search that forgives Arabic spelling: Different forms of hamza, ta marbuta and diacritics are treated as the same, so a reader finds an article regardless of how they typed the query.
- Readable Arabic web addresses: Every article has an Arabic link that still means something when it is shared.
- Search-engine details per article: Each piece has its own title, description and sharing image for search results, set by the editor.
- Archives that stay fast: Category and archive pages keep loading quickly as the collection of essays grows.
Readers and community
- Comments with replies: Readers discuss an article beneath it, with replies nested under the comment they answer.
- Moderation before publication: Comments can be held for approval, hidden or removed, and the whole system switched off site-wide if the editor prefers.
- A newsletter list: Readers subscribe when they register, when they activate an account, or directly, and each subscription is recorded with its source.
- Reader messages in one inbox: Contact messages collect in an admin inbox rather than a personal email account.
Knowing what people actually read
- Opened versus finished: The magazine tracks how many people opened an article and how many read it through — the distinction that matters when the pieces are long.
- Day by day, not a running total: Views, reads and shares are recorded per article per day, so the editor sees when a piece found its audience.
- Which essays travel: Share counts sit alongside readership, showing what readers pass on.
Running the magazine
- The site's identity is editable: Logo, dark-mode logo, colours, tagline and search-engine defaults are changed from the dashboard and applied immediately.
- Switches for how the magazine behaves: Comments, comment approval, the newsletter, reading time, view counts and articles per page are each turned on or off.
- Announcements and FAQs: A site-wide notice bar and an editable questions section, both managed as content.
- Header and footer control: Logo placement, header imagery, footer message and campaign badges are all set from the panel.
- Maintenance mode: The magazine can be closed to readers for a scheduled window with a custom message, while the editorial team keeps working normally.
Controlling who can do what
- Permissions granted one by one: Managing articles, categories, comments, messages, users and site settings are each granted separately, so a contributor gets exactly what they need.
- Two ways to sign in: Readers and staff sign in with Google or with an activated email account, with password reset and verified email changes.
- Accounts can be suspended: An account can be suspended with a stated reason and an expiry date, or hidden entirely.
- Access during maintenance: A dedicated permission lets trusted accounts read the site while it is closed to everyone else.
Visit the magazine
- Read Badiei at badieii.com.
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