Middle Eastern filmmakers talk about challenges and opportunities in Saudi Arabia at the Red Sea Film Festival

All eyes are on Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning film industry as the second edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival continues this week from December 1 to 10 in the port city of Jeddah.

Over the weekend, the event hosted a dazzling list of international, regional and local stars and filmmakers, led by Oliver Stone, Sharon Stone, Spike Lee, Guy Richie and Andrew Dominik.

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The main behind-the-scenes endgame is to shine a spotlight on the country’s film and television sector, which has grown rapidly following the lifting of the country’s 35-year cinema ban in late 2017 as part of a broader strategy to opening country’s economy and society.

In five years, the country has built 580 screens, opened two major cinema locations in AlUla and Neom, and is constantly building a network of local producers, distributors and exhibitors in response to the demand for local content.

meeting spoke to a trio of regional leaders who are riding this wave.

Faisal Baltyour, Founder and CEO of Cinewaves

Saudi film pioneer Faisal Baltyour was the first CEO of the Saudi Film Board following the lifting of the Saudi ban on 35 cinemas, before launching arthouse-focused distribution label Cinewaves in 2019.

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The Slate is a mix of local indie films and art house titles from the MENA region. The company has six distribution titles in the Red Sea list this year. They contain Saudi characteristics In sand and valley away and festival favourites Harka, The Last Queen, How I got there and Hanging Gardens.

MEETING: What are the biggest challenges for your company and the distribution industry?

FAISAL BALTJOU: The lack of support for local distribution companies to assist in the marketing and distribution of Saudi films. Most funding initiatives flow into film development, production and post-production.

Certain Saudi films will have a much better chance of success with financial support for marketing and distribution. I am sure that support will come as we produce more local commercial films.

MEETING: Where do you see opportunities?

BALTJOU: There is a huge gap in terms of Saudi commercial films. Most films in the local market are arthouse and are mainly aimed at festivals rather than commercial cinemas. It is good to have a balance between the two.

MEETING: How was 2022 for business and what are your expectations for 2023?

BALTJOU: We have grown this year and adapted to the market. We released 11 films on Netflix, the first Saudi horror film, Juno, which was released theatrically during Halloween, and more than 60 films that were officially selected and screened at local and international film festivals. It was important to us to be a leading distributor. In 2023, the results of our strategy launched this year should become visible. Many more announcements to come.

Gianluca Chakra, Founder and CEO of Front Row Filmed Entertainment

Gianluca Chakra is co-founder and general manager of Dubai-based pan-Arab distribution company Front Row Filmed Entertainment. Founded in 2003, the company is a driving force in the MENA region’s indie distribution industry. It was one of the first distributors to establish itself directly in Saudi Arabia with the creation of Front Row Arabia in early 2021 in partnership with local exhibition company Muvi Cinemas

MEETING: What are the biggest challenges for your company and the distribution industry?

GIANLUCA CHAKRA: First censorship. Although we know that the General Commission for Audiovisual Media (GCAM) is doing their best, we still do not have clear guidelines on what is and is not allowed.

Indie distributors often take the risk of acquiring titles that may be banned in the territory. In the past, MENA contracts included censorship clauses, but today these are unbankable and the risk rests with the distributor signing the film.

It’s not just a Saudi issue, it’s MENA as a whole, and that’s often because whoever watches the film is judged and taken out of context.

Second, the rental conditions for films. Indie and local film distributors are penalized because exhibitors in Saudi Arabia have decided that indie and local cinema should be paid less than any other big or Bollywood distributor. National language films account for 8.2% of all films released, or 33 titles out of 401 (in 2022), but account for nearly 30% of admissions. It’s a huge contradiction when exhibitors say they promote local content.

Finally, there is a conflict of interest from exhibitors who also act as distribution studios.

Where do you see opportunities?

CHAKRA: The market is slowly reaching a plateau. There is still some kind of growth, but it needs to be refined. Evidence of this is that many exhibitors have reduced their average ticket price from $17 to about $12 and in some cases to $10.5 on weekdays.

Many exhibitors have now clearly postponed their expansion plans. Every film is currently being released in every cinema circuit, where most are often “burned” when tent poles are released.

Remember Spider-Man’s opening weekend, when multiplexes opened up most of the screens for it and filled the 10 other releases into three or four screens. Counter programming often goes out the window leaving that space for the streamers to fill that void.

When it comes to distributing indie and local films, we seek the best revenue stream and exposure our titles can achieve, which does not necessarily mean that all titles will be released theatrically.

Opportunity now hinges on community screens and luxury arthouse cinemas, modeled after brands such as Landmark Cinemas, Everyman and Curzon, where you can appeal to audiences that today’s multiplexes just can’t satisfy… simply because they can. They also lack the knowledge to maintain such programs. This is a great opportunity.

After all, content is the key to driving the theater industry. This is where the real opportunity lies. Now it’s time to develop better content.

In the past it was led by free TV sales, whereas now you have a big opportunity in cinemas before the local or global streamers jump in or bring them in from the start.

Again, to grow the number of streamers, especially global streamers, and get more subscribers, the answer is local content as well as content that can travel. This means that there is increasing competition in terms of production and development centers, which will ultimately lead to better quality films and programs.

MEETING: How was 2022 for business and what are your expectations for 2023?

CHAKRA: It was great. In fact, with One Piece Film Red, we had the biggest anime opening in Saudi history. We released our first movie, the first Netflix original (Perfect aliens). We also shot our second film and this time it’s an original film, more news about it soon and we distributed our first Saudi film Itinerary 10partnered with Imagenation and MBC Studios and sold our first Saudi film globally to Netflix.

We have three feature films planned for 2023, including our remake of in Arabic Untouchable and two TV shows we developed for most of 2021 and 2022.

Alaa Fadan, co-founder and CEO of Telfaz11

Alaa Fadan is co-founder and CEO of Riyadh-based film and digital content production and financing company Telfaz11. The company, which made its name on YouTube before the cinema ban was lifted, is one of Saudi Arabia’s busiest content companies. Telfaz11 is at the Red Sea Film Festival this year with three feature films: Action-comedy Sattar; dark comedy crow song, Saudi Arabia’s Oscar entry this year; and the satirical suspense comedy khallat+.

MEETING: What are the biggest challenges for your company and the manufacturing industry?

ALAA FADAN: Production resources – from creative to teams to sales. Several of our projects this year required us to fly in teams from outside Saudi Arabia, such as Tunisia and Egypt. We see this trend continuing for the foreseeable future, or at least until the local market starts showing more of this type of talent. There are few experienced filmmakers in Saudi Arabia and with so much competition in this new landscape, the few experienced Saudi crews are often overbooked.

Similarly, it is very difficult to find strong local screenwriters for films, so our process tends to take longer and requires more promotions than in other, more developed markets.

MEETING: Where do you see opportunities?

FADAN: The opportunity is clear for us to make films that sit at the intersection of culture and creativity, tell Saudi stories and pave the way for Saudi films to be watched and appreciated both locally and globally.

MEETING: How was 2022 for business and what are your expectations for 2023?

FADAN: Perhaps the most important, Telfaz11 on 11.11. celebrated our 11th anniversary with the launch of our 11th film. Although 2011 was our founding year, for us the number 11 symbolizes the idea of ​​always going above and beyond. When everyone else measures themselves on a scale of 1 to 10, we want to be an 11. It is central to everything we do.

2022 was such an important year for Telfaz11 as we launched our films under Telfaz11 Studios and worked to develop two new premium series, relaunch our digital arm with a number of new digital programs including key strategic partners such as SRMG and 11 wonderful years of Telfaz11 creations.

We hope to see growth in the market, especially in the box office space, which helps us gain traction and build a sustainable business around filmmaking in the Kingdom. We hope our films will leave a mark on audiences and tell our stories in an unprecedented way, opening a new perspective and dialogue about Saudi culture.