The Red Sea International Film Festival has partnered with with VOX Cinemas, MBC GROUP and Saudia Airlines, making its first inaugural Film Festival opening in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at Jeddah Old Town between December 6-15, 2021.
The big festival opens with 138 feature films and shorts from 67 countries in 34 languages from both, featuring 27 new films from an exciting wave of Saudi filmmakers. Prominent filmmakers, actors and emerging talent were in attendance to be a part of this historical event, making this Jeddah’s biggest film festival debut to date.
The Festival’s Opening Ceremony featured prominent Arab stars and filmmakers including Hany Abu-Assad, Amira Diab, Mohamed Henedy, Inas ElDeghedy, Saba Mubarak, Nelly Karim, Imed Marzouk, Lebleba, Hala Sedki, Najib BelKadhi and Elham Shaheen.
Red Sea also honoured three women who have made significant contributions in the film industry: Saudi Arabia, multi award-winning filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour, Academy Award and BAFTA nominated French actress Catherine Deneuve and acclaimed Egyptian actress Laila Eloui.
As history unfolds in this occasion in Saudi Arabia, a lot of Saudi stars and filmmakers were in attendance: Waheed Jamjoom, Hassan Assiri, Yousef Al Jarrah, Khalid Alfarraj, Yassir Alsaggaf, Ali Kalthami, Mohammed Abu Hamdan, Faisak Al Dokhy, Mohammed Aldokhy, Ibrahim AlKhairallah, Alaa Faden, Godus Brothers, Mila AlZahrani, Elham Ali & Khalid Saqr, Meshal Aljasser, Baraa Alem, Khalid Alharbi, Alanoud Saoud, Saad AbdulAziz, and Abdullah Dhahran.
The festival also could not have taken off without having to honour Jack Lang, President of the ‘Institut du Monde Arabe’ and former ‘Minister of Culture’ and ‘Minister of Education’, who was a significant contributor to promote relations between Saudi Arabia and France forming a positive cultural relationship between Arab and France cinema.
Mohammed Al-Turki, Chairman of the Red Sea International Film Festival Committee, said: “It is a true honour to host such a wealth of both international and Arabic talent at our Opening Ceremony, in a celebration of filmmaking unlike any other that the Kingdom has seen before. Over the next ten days, we will honour the very best of filmmaking from our region and beyond, and we could not have wished for a better way to begin, than tonight. The festival is a watershed moment for our burgeoning Saudi film industry, and the Opening Ceremony has set a high bar of what is to come in our festival’s future.”