Shekhar Kapur’s rom com “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” will open the second edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival, where director Oliver Stone will preside over the main jury.
The fest, which is Saudi’s first full-fledged film festival and market with international ambitions after the country in late 2017 removed its religion-related ban on cinemas, will run Dec. 1-10 in Jeddah, on the eastern shore of the Red Sea.
The closer is the world premiere of Saudi feature “Valley Road,” written and directed by Khaled Fahd, an uplifting drama about a man named Ali who lives in a mountain village and is perceived as having a disability.
Sandwiched in between is a mix of the cream of the festival circuit crop, such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winning “Triangle of Sadness,” Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and Park Chan-Wook’s “Decision to Leave,” to name a few, interspersed amid a rich serving of fresh fare from the Arab world, with an accent on Saudi’s own increasingly fertile cinematic output.
As Red Sea fest CEO Mohammed Al Turki put it in a statement: “Our programmers have curated the best of Arab and international cinema, talent-led galas of some of the most anticipated films of the year, and an exceptional selection from astonishing new Saudi talents who are paving the way in our country’s flourishing industry.”
Gala screening world premieres comprise Saudi director Fahad Alammari’s “Alkhallat+,” a film spin-off of his digital series “Alkhallat,” looking at different instances of social deception and trickery, which scored more than 1.5 billion views; and Lebanese director Lara Saba’s rom-com “All Roads Lead to Rome,” in which a famous young actor is asked to audition for a film role as a young pope, and sees an opportunity to break free from the mediocre television series he stars in.
The 16-title competition of works from the Arab region, Asia and Africa, comprises Lebanese director Wissam Charaf’s love story between two refugees living in Beirut, “Dirty Difficult Dangerous”; Iraqi director Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji’s experimental “Hanging Gardens,” which follows a young Baghdad garbage picker who finds a discarded American sex doll; and India’s official entry for the international Oscar “Last Film Show,” a fictional retelling of the director Pan Nalin’s boyhood that becomes an ode to cinema.
Germany’s Fatih Akin will be on hand for the Middle East premiere of his latest film “Rheingold,” a biopic of a German rapper, and will also be holding an onstage conversation.
Other on-stage conversations include “Bend it Like Beckham” writer and director Gurinder Chadha, who will discuss how that film became a smash hit and a cultural phenomenon, and Egyptian star Mona Zaki who recently starred in Netflix’s Arabic adaptation of megahit dramedy “Perfect Strangers,” directed by Wissam Smayra.
The Red Sea Souk, the fest’s industry market, will run Dec. 3-6 and offer curated meeting and networking opportunities revolving around Arab and African product, as well as several panels. Execs from 46 countries are expected to take part.
Nvivarelli
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