Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival Highlights Local Productions Depicting Social Change in Arab Galas Strand

Films from Saudi Arabia form the core of the Red Sea International Film Festival’s Arab Spectacular five-picture strand, which features world premieres of a trio of new Saudi titles exploring societal changes in the kingdom.

One case in point is “Hobal,” the new allegorical drama by Saudi director Abdulaziz Alshlahei (“The Tambour of Retribution”). The film follows a Bedouin family whose members are forced by its patriarch to live in isolation in the desert due to fear of an infectious disease during the 1990s when Saudi was starting to open up to the outside world.

Another Saudi social drama in the section is “My Driver and I,” the directorial debut of New York-trained Saudi multi-hyphenate Ahd Kamel. It tells the story of Salma — a young, privileged and rebellious Saudi girl — and her African driver, Gamar, who left his family and moved to Jeddah to earn a living. Set during the 1980s and 90s, “My Driver and I” sees the two “form an unlikely friendship which is tested when she starts to take the wheel,” as the provided synopsis puts it.

Then there is the hotly anticipated social satire “Lail Nahar,” directed by local hitmaker Abdulaziz Almuzaini, who is a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen. Almuzaini is the director-producer behind popular Saudi TV series and movie “Masameer,” which is often described as a Saudi version of “South Park.” Almuzaini has been accused by Saudi prosecutors of promoting extremism through the cartoon series.

Rounding off the Red Sea Film Festival‘s Arab Spectacular selection is prolific Algerian auteur Merzak Allouache’s wacky dramedy “Front Row,” about a feud that breaks out between matriarchs who are vying for the best spot at the beach; and Egyptian director Omar Bakry’s “Abdo & Saneya,” a silent, black-and-white film about an Egyptian couple who immigrates to New York City in search of a cure for infertility without having any notion of modern American life.

The fourth edition of the fest will run Dec. 6-14 in Jeddah, on the Red Sea’s eastern shore.

(Pictured above: “Hobal.”)