Cynthia Erivo, Will Smith, Michelle Yeoh, Emily Blunt Help Open Saudi Arabia's Red Sea Film Festival
Launched in 2021, the Red Sea Fund has supported more than 250 projects, including feature fiction films, documentaries, animation movies, shorts, and series.
Kaouther Ben Hania's Four Daughters, Asmae El Moudir's The Mother of All Lies, Amjad Al Rasheed's Inshallah a Boy, Ali Kalthami's Mandoob, Baloji's Omen, and Tawfik Alzaidi's Norah are among the features it has supported.
The Red Sea Film Foundation's fund had a landmark Cannes Film Festival this year with four titles supported by it selected for its program. This included Norah, which had its world premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) last December and made history as the first Saudi film to be chosen to screen as part of the Cannes Official Selection.
Ahead of this year's fourth edition of RSIFF, Emad Iskandar, director of the Red Sea Fund, told THR that he is proud of what his team has accomplished within a short period of time.
"People are often surprised by the knowledge of the general audience here in Saudi Arabia. We have been very much exposed to Hollywood, Bollywood, and then there is a big part of the population that's also (familiar) with Japanese animation," he highlighted. "We were exposed in that way, but not so much to independent, artistic film. Now that is changing, and we have the advantage of having this fresh eye."
He and his team can rely on creative experience in their work. "I'm a filmmaker first, and so are members of my team," Iskandar explained, sharing that being grounded in the foundations of film is also a key part of his recipe for success. "Only a few years in, the name of the game is sustainability. We need to make our work sustainable and focus on building the infrastructure for film. And I believe that what we're doing is (built on) doing the basics well."
The fund boss also lauds the passion of the people around him. "I have to give it to my team. Everybody in the team is excited to see every project and then discuss it," he said. "I can see how this job can be one of the easiest jobs on Earth with an Excel sheet. Let the readers do their job, send you a report, go 'yes,' 'yes,' 'no.' This job can be 10 minutes a month, but it can also be 10 hours every day, and we're working on the 10-hour everyday schedule."
The fund team really started finding its groove and confidence in 2023. "It started with Berlin, and we had two films there, and we were happy," recalled Iskandar. "And then suddenly we were in Cannes with eight films, and they received awards. And one project, Four Daughters, went to the Oscars this year (as Tunisia's entry in the best documentary category). We just couldn't believe it."
This first was followed by another first when the first Saudi feature made the cut for the venerable Cannes Film Festival's official selection, namely Norah, which is set in the 1990s when all forms of art and painting were banned in the country. "This showed us that the hunting and handpicking we do works," highlighted the fund boss.
Speaking of handpicking: before the fund officially opens up for projects from Asia in 2025, "we have an initiative this year that allows us to handpick projects," Iskandar says. "And the first project that we handpicked was To Kill a Mongolian Horse (by Xiaoxuan Jiang which examines the bond between humans and horses in Mongolian culture and societal change)." That film had its world premiere in the Venice Days program and is part of the RSIFF competition lineup.
The addition of Asia will bring excitement but also challenges for the fund, Iskandar tells THR. "Opening to Asia is kind of intimidating, to be honest," he shares, but also doesn't hide his enthusiasm. "Just thinking about such markets as India, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan which are huge is big. That's one of the things that we're looking forward to next year as we expand the work of the fund."