The UAE''s film and media industry runs on people — cinematographers, sound engineers, editors, makeup artists, production companies and talent agencies. But finding and booking them still happens through WhatsApp groups, stale spreadsheets and word of mouth. UAE Media Directory is MediaDXB''s answer: one platform where the whole industry is searchable, verified and bookable.
What we built
At its core is a structured directory spanning more than fifty crew departments and a full taxonomy of production companies, rental houses, studios and agencies. Every listing is a real profile — showreels, portfolios, credits, day rates, availability and reviews — not a phone number in a group chat.
On top of the directory sits the marketplace layer: productions post roles to the job board, request quotes from vendors, and book crew with milestone-based payments in AED. Talent agencies manage rosters of exclusive talent; companies manage teams with role-based seats, from owners and producers down to coordinators and accountants.
The platform also runs its own editorial voice, The Media Journal — an industry magazine covering the production market in the Gulf — plus a community layer with events, spotlights and referral programmes.
How it''s engineered
MediaDXB built the platform end to end: product design, data model, application and infrastructure. It is a modern full-stack web application — server-rendered React (Next.js) backed by PostgreSQL, with role-based access control, secure payment flows, media handling for showreels and portfolios, and an operations console for the team running it. The data model cleanly separates permission tiers, crew versus talent, and the supply and demand sides of the market — the kind of taxonomy work that makes a marketplace searchable instead of a listing dump.
The platform is live in private beta with productions and crew across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, ahead of a public launch.
What it took
A marketplace is three products wearing one interface: a directory that must be complete, a booking system that must be trusted, and a community that must be alive. Each demanded its own design language, data pipeline and moderation tooling. Building all three under one roof — strategy, software, AI-assisted content operations and hosting — is exactly the work MediaDXB exists to do.
