The third edition of the Red Sea Film Festival, wrapping Saturday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, felt like a direct response to a burning question from executives and investors present at the festival’s market arm last year: Could Saudi Arabia step out from drama and comedy and head into genre filmmaking? The answer offered by the festival, it turns out, was a resounding yes.
“Arabs are closer to fantasy than the Western world,” director Yasir Al-Yasiri told Variety of this year’s Red Sea Film Festival opening film, “Hwjn.” The film, a sprawling fantasy about the Arab Jinn culture set and shot in Jeddah, comes at the “right time,” according to the director. “We have the means to do so, and so many talented people have gathered great experience from working abroad with big companies and now they are working in our region.”
“Saudi changed so much that suddenly we had room to explore,...
“Arabs are closer to fantasy than the Western world,” director Yasir Al-Yasiri told Variety of this year’s Red Sea Film Festival opening film, “Hwjn.” The film, a sprawling fantasy about the Arab Jinn culture set and shot in Jeddah, comes at the “right time,” according to the director. “We have the means to do so, and so many talented people have gathered great experience from working abroad with big companies and now they are working in our region.”
“Saudi changed so much that suddenly we had room to explore,...
- 12/9/2023
- by Rafa Sales Ross
- Variety Film + TV
Mbc Studios is developing a series adaptation of popular Saudi writer Osamah Almuslim’s best-selling debut horror novel Khawf (Fear).
It is the second work by Almuslim to be adapted by the high-end production arm of Riyadh-based media giant Mbc Group, after his fantasy Rise Of The Witches about two rival covens in ancient Arabia.
The work revolves around a studious young man who is given a book about the existence of a second world by a mysterious sheikh, the reading of which sets in motion a series of terrifying events.
Zeinab Abu Alsamh, who is general manager of the Saudi arm of Mbc Studios, announced the project in an industry panel on different aspects of developing IP at the Red Film Festival.
“It’s a very exciting project and has a very, very, very big fan base. That’s what make it exciting and scary at the same time,...
It is the second work by Almuslim to be adapted by the high-end production arm of Riyadh-based media giant Mbc Group, after his fantasy Rise Of The Witches about two rival covens in ancient Arabia.
The work revolves around a studious young man who is given a book about the existence of a second world by a mysterious sheikh, the reading of which sets in motion a series of terrifying events.
Zeinab Abu Alsamh, who is general manager of the Saudi arm of Mbc Studios, announced the project in an industry panel on different aspects of developing IP at the Red Film Festival.
“It’s a very exciting project and has a very, very, very big fan base. That’s what make it exciting and scary at the same time,...
- 12/5/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
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