Ashraf Abo Arafe
The Ambassador of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the League of Arab States, Ambassador Osama Naqli, will attend the opening of the Saudi film “Umra and the Second Wedding” on today Wednesday, November 21. Which was opened in Cairo on Tuesday.
It is noteworthy that the beginning of the localization of film production in the Kingdom was in the fifties of the last century, with the emergence of the first local film in 1950, and the title “flies”, starring Hassan al-Ghanim, whose history recorded his name as the first Saudi film actor.
The real beginning of the Saudi film production was in 1966, where he produced the film “The Conspiracy of Conscience” by the Saudi director Saad Al-Freih. Then the production level evolved technically until it reached an important station in 1976 when the Saudi director Abdullah Al-Muhaisen gave his film ” Who addressed the Lebanese civil war and won the Nefertiti award for best short film to be screened at the Cairo Film Festival in 1977.
In 1980, the film “An Appointment with the Unknown” appeared, followed by “Islam the Bridge of the Future” in 1982, which participated in the 6th Cairo Festival and won the Golden Award.
With the beginning of the second millennium, Saudi film production increased. The total number of Saudi films in the period from 1975 to 2012 reached 255. Saudi directors and directors received dozens of prizes at the Arab and international film festivals. Won the Golden Award for the 2013 Beirut Film Festival, the same year that the Academy of Sciences and Arts announced the nomination of Wajda in 71 nominations for the Oscar International Award as the first Saudi film.
In accordance with the vision of 2030, which was announced by His Highness the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in April 2016, and included an important aspect of the development of culture and arts to become a new cultural and economic extension of the Kingdom, the culture and arts sector witnessed a real renaissance that contributed to the creation of a cultural industry concerned with art, theater, cinema, And development of infrastructure for the culture and entertainment sector. For this purpose, the concerned bodies such as the General Authority for Culture, the General Authority for Entertainment and the Saudi Film Council were established. The Kingdom opened its doors to Arab and international artists and creators. Musical performances and international entertainment were held. The cinemas were established in April 2018, The company, led by American company AMC, the world’s largest movie theater company, and Fox Cinema, is expected to open about 350 cinemas with more than 2500 screens by 2030.
This cultural and artistic renaissance has had a significant impact on the Saudi film presence in international forums. In August 2016, the comedy “Ponda Pond Beraka” was selected to represent the Kingdom at the 2017 Oscar Best Foreign Film Awards. In May 2018, Saudi Arabia participated in the Cannes International Film Festival in its final edition through a special pavilion of the Saudi Film Council, where nine Saudi films were screened in the short film section of the festival in the first Saudi official representation in the history of this great world forum. Generally, 20 Saudi films participated at the Malmö Film Festival in Sweden, to continue creativity and hard work in order to put the Saudi art a real imprint in the Arab world and the international one.
