Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival opens on Thursday with the Middle East premiere of Rowan Athale’s boxing biopic “Giant,” starring Egyptian-British actor Amir El Masry as iconic British-Yemeni featherweight “Prince” Naseem Hamed and Pierce Brosnan as his trainer, just as Saudi’s nascent film and TV industry is busy bulking up.
The choice of “Giant” as out-of-competition opener for the ambitious event held in Jeddah, on the Red Sea’s eastern shore – which is now firmly on the map as a prominent film market in the Arab region – underlines the fest’s “East meets West” mission, said Red Sea Foundation CEO Faisal Baltyuor, who is a Saudi Arabian film industry pioneer. Besides the festival, the foundation oversees its Red Sea Souk market, the Red Sea Fund, and year-round labs.
“I truly believe that we are the biggest market in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region, and I can see this growing substantially because we’re so inclusive of Asia and Africa,” noted the fest’s managing director Shivani Pandya Malhotra. She called “Giant” “a perfect amalgamation of what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to showcase.”
The festival’s competition, featuring films from Asia, Africa and the Arab world, comprises seven titles supported by the Red Sea Film Foundation. They include Saudi filmmaker Shahad Ameen’s road movie “Hijra,” about the bond formed between different generations of Saudi women during a journey across the desert, which is Saudi’s Academy Award submission; Cyril Aris’ love story “A Sad and Beautiful World,” which spans three decades in Beirut against the backdrop of its tumultuous history and is Lebanon’s Oscar candidate; Jordanian director Zain Duraie’s “Sink,” a debut feature that follows a mother struggling with her son’s unravelling mental state; and Algerian horror film “Roqia” by Yanis Koussim.
Sean Baker, the Oscar-winning director of “Anora,” is presiding over the jury.
Baker will also be holding a master class in Jeddah, as will Adrien Brody, who previously attended the fest’s 2023 edition, and former Miss World and popular Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (“Bride and Prejudice”). Actor and director Giancarlo Esposito, best known for his iconic role as Gustavo “Gus” Fring in “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” is making the trek to Jeddah to host a mentoring session for participants at the Red Sea Labs’ SeriesLab that aims to foster Arab TV writers and producers.
The fest’s International Spectacular strand includes Angelina Jolie-led drama “Couture” by Alice Winocour; Mamoru Hosoda’s anime “Scarlet,” based on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”; Olivier Assayas’ political thriller/comedy “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” starring Paul Dano and Jude Law; Spanish dance documentary “Farruquito: A Flamenco Story”; and Rupert Wyatt’s Saudi Arabia-set drama “Desert Warrior” with Anthony Mackie, Ben Kingsley and British-Saudi actress Aiysha Hart.
Touted as Saudi’s first Hollywood-style tentpole movie, the long-gestating “Desert Warrior” – which is produced by Saudi-owned powerhouse MBC Studios with U.S. producer Jeremy Bolt (“Resident Evil”) and Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios – revolves around a princess (Hart) who refuses to serve as concubine to a ruthless emperor (Kingsley), prompting an epic showdown called the Battle of Ze Qar.
Baltyuor proudly noted the wide range of genres displayed by Saudi movies playing at Red See this year, spanning from the “Desert Warrior” epic to arthouse-geared “Hijra” and Haifaa Al Mansour’s thriller “Unidentified” – which Sony will release in the U.S. – that depicts rampant sexism in Saudi Arabia, plus Jeddah-set rom-com “A Matter of Life and Death” by Jeddah-based Yemeni filmmaker Anas Ba-Tahaf.
Ba-Tahaf’s 2021 drama “Fay’s Palette,” about a girl secluded in her home by a controlling brother, was one of Saudi’s first features made after the country’s 35-year religion-related cinema ban was lifted in 2017.
The Red Sea Foundation CEO also underlined the fest’s well-established role in promoting Saudi cinema even beyond the theatrical arena. “For the past three years, most titles in our New Saudi Cinema section have been picked up by Netflix,” Baltyuor pointed out.
Executives from Netflix, Prime Video and Disney will be attending the Red Sea Souk where more than 160 companies from some 45 countries have booked a market stand.
“It’s going to be a strong market,” says Pandya Malhotra, noting that registered attendance at the Souk is up 25% from last year, which saw roughly 4,000 industry executives come through.
The Red Sea Film Festival’s fifth edition will run Dec. 4-13 in Jeddah’s old town of Al Balad, which is a UNESCO Heritage site.