It’s a year of change in the programming of the Red Sea Film Festival. Its fifth edition, taking place between Dec. 4-13, marks the first for Fionnuala Halligan as director of international programs. The seasoned journalist and curator arrives at a time of expansion at the Saudi festival, which has settled into its new home of Jeddah’s Culture Square as it solidifies a desire to deliver film programming year-round.
Speaking with Variety ahead of the festival’s kick off, Halligan says her first few months in the job have been “pretty fast and furious.” “There was not much time to sit still. I had to get a team together and figure out what we could do with the existing structure. By the time I came on board, it was just about trying to bring new ideas and see what we could work with.”
Halligan brought in an entirely new programming team to the festival, which includes her former collaborator at the Macao Film Festival and Good Chaos CEO Mike Goodridge, Toronto film curator Giovanna Fulvi, former artistic director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival Deepti D’Cunha, journalist Ahmed Al-Ayyad, African cinema expert Alex Moussa Sawadogo, and Alice Kharoubi, who was already part of the Souk team.
Highlights of this year’s program include Venice standouts “Hijra” and “Roqia,” Lebanon’s Oscar entry “A Sad and Beautiful World,” renowned Palestinian films such as “Palestine 36,” “All That’s Left of You” and major international standouts such as “The Secret Agent,” “Sirât,” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” The festival will also host world premieres like “The Stories” and “Noor.”
Halligan worked closely alongside the director of Arab programs, Antoine Khalife, to shape the 2025 edition. Together, the two created stronger ties between their sections as the festival welcomed films from Asia — one of Halligan’s specialties — to its competition, previously only open to the Arab world and Africa. “Antoine is very open and passionate about film, and we have a lot of common ground. All my films go to him, all his films come to me, and when he gets enthusiastic about things I’m chasing, it encourages me on,” says Halligan. “We’re both after the same thing, which is full houses, progression, inclusion, expansion and encouragement to young filmmakers.”
Khalife echoes his colleague, praising the “exchange” of ideas the two had over the last few months. Commenting on the Arab selection at this year’s festival, the programmer says it’s one of the strongest crops they have ever had, with standouts like Ameer Fakher Eldin’s “Yunan” and Saudi’s very own Shahad Ameen with “Hijra.” “I started programming very early this year because I knew the Arabic films were very strong. We’ve all been moved by the quality of the films.”
“Yunan,” courtesy of Red Sea Film Festival
Courtesy of Amman Film Festival
Still, Khalife highlights a certain “difficulty” in programming an Arab festival when the region is experiencing devastating wars in Palestine and Sudan. At such times, many filmmakers turn their lenses to conflict, broaching urgent issues that often obfuscate conversations around the filmmaking itself. “This is such an important conversation because it affects many films, not just the Palestinian ones,” says the veteran curator. “The war in Palestine has a direct impact on all Arab films of today. Directors, given what is happening in Gaza, want to talk more about their own families, their identities and the past. Of course, films coming from Palestine like ‘Palestine 36’ and ‘All That’s Left of You’ are very strong, but the filmmaking itself is strong, it’s not just the subject that is important.”
“Even the films trying to play with a new genre go back to political or social problems,” he adds. “We have an Algerian film called ‘Roqia,’ the first Algerian film to play Venice, and it was supposed to be a horror film, but, when you think about it, it is about the black years in Algeria at the beginning of the 90s. It goes back to political issues.”
On the subject of the local cultural and political landscape, the festival has managed to screen several uncut international films over the years, even showcasing frontal nudity and sex scenes like in John Crowley’s “We Live in Time,” which played in Jeddah last year. Variety has learned that this year, however, certain films will be slightly altered to play for Saudi audiences, like Kleber Mendonça Filho’s twice-Cannes-winning thriller “The Secret Agent.” The festival will not screen a scene of the film that features gay sex.
In a statement, Red Sea said: “We never require films to be altered in order to play at our festival – however, we run a public-facing event within a specific cultural context which we need to respect. On rare occasions, and with directors’ consent, rightsholders have submitted slightly modified versions– similar to standard Middle East edits – for submission. This happened with ‘The Secret Agent.’” When asked if any other films would face cuts to play at the festival this year, representatives could not confirm.
“The Secret Agent,” courtesy of Neon
Courtesy of NEON
Prodded on the subject, Halligan says that she sees “an opening up of society” in Saudi. “The Saudi film industry has come a lot over the last year, and the big story of this year is how people are flocking to see their own culture in cinemas. We are seeing a lot more excitement for the Saudi features and people looking at us as a portal into what is going on at the moment in world cinema. People are proud [of the festival] and rightly so because it has made a huge mark on the map in a very short space of time. A lot is going on in the region; it’s a very exciting moment.”
As for the future, Halligan says the entire Red Sea team is “pretty ambitious.” “You have the feeling you are just scratching the surface. We have had huge interest from the territories we are focused on, and people are really supportive in countries like India. We’d like to have something for them here throughout the year so we don’t confine our relationship to only 10 days of the year.”
Khalife is frank in saying that the festival won’t have longevity if they don’t have “good audiences.” “I believe the challenge is to attract more people, not only from the industry, but locals, so we can create a local audience for a different kind of cinema. The challenge is to see full houses during the festival for films like ‘Yunan’ or ‘Hjra.’ I want to organize year-round events at Culture Square and make Jeddah a cinema destination. I want Culture Square to be Saudi’s film house.”