The Saudi Film Council, a body which answers to the General Authority for Culture, announced inviting international expertise to participate in a workshop for developing a number of screenplay scripts that qualified for the Kingdom’s Film Festival.
The festival’s fifth edition is scheduled for this coming March and has categories such as feature films, documentaries and student productions.
This workshop is a part of a series of prelude programs preparing for the festival's launch on 21-26 March 2019 at the King Abdul Aziz International Cultural Center. Interestingly, the workshop will be supervised by well-established Arab directors such as: Lebanese director Antoine Khalifa, Egyptian director Yusri Nasrallah, Moroccan director Hakim Bellabas and Saudi director Hanaa Al - Ameer.
The head of the main film festival in Saudi Arabia, Ahmed AlMulla, said that the workshop aims to develop intensively on a short list of selected scripts. It will also link playwrights to a production company and team.
The festival, which closed registration, announced receiving over 186 applicants for the screenwriter competition, a 60 percent increase for participation compared to the fourth edition’s 116 contestants.
As for developing local film production, the film festival, presenting modern-day financing, marketing and founding of a local market simply raises the bar for the Saudi filmmaking industry.
The festival is one of many programs established under the Saudi National Initiative for the Development of the Saudi Film Industry launched by SASCA.
Since its first edition in 2008, the festival has sought to advance the film industry, promote cultural mobility and provide opportunities for Saudi talents. It has also offered opportunities for filmmakers to display their works and meet the best practitioners in the field from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
In its fifth session, the festival will honor two key figures who contributed greatly to the local and international film industry: the late Saudi artist Lotfi Zini and UAE filmmaker Massoud Ammarullah Al Ali. Honoring historic figures in moviemaking is a tradition upheld by the Saudi Film Festival in order to introduce aspiring youth to iconic contributors that left their mark within the industry.
