JEDDAH, 12 July 2006 — The Jeddah Visual Shows Festival, which begins today at 7 p.m. at the Jeddah Science and Technology Center on the Corniche, may mislead visitors. It sounds like a science exhibition, but it’s not. It’s Saudi Arabia’s first movie festival.
For the next four weeks, the public will be allowed to view regional short films in a public forum that is open to men and women.
“At the festival we are going to display 16 movies. Some are documentaries, others are short narrative movies and one cartoon,” said Mamdouh Salem, executive manager of the Ruwaad media company for audio and visual production, the organizer of the event.
Half of the 16 movies are Saudi productions, seven are from the UAE and one is from Kuwait.
“We can’t say that we have Saudi cinema. These films are mainly experiments by amateurs who wanted to express themselves through movies,” said Salem.
Salem said that the main aim behind having this festival is to introduce the Saudi public to the locally produced films that have been shown abroad. One of the Saudi films “The Last Piece” was shown at a festival in Holland last year.
The four movies showing today tackle various themes and genres, including a drama about the ugliness of terrorism (“The Lost Dream”), an animated horror film about a stranger that scares village children (“Sada”), and the experimental short film about two men sitting in the same chair (“The Last Piece”).
The films will be showing for the next four weeks on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays beginning at 7.15 p.m. The entry fee is SR20 for all the features in the evening.
While Saudi Arabia had a modest number of movie theaters in the 1960s, they were closed down in the early 1980s in the midst of a surge of conservatism that began in the 1970s.
Salem said that there has been understanding and cooperation from the authorities in allowing them to hold the festival. All of the films have been viewed and approved by the Ministry of Information and Culture.
“The most important thing is to present movies that go along with our conservative society and its traditions and customs,” said Salem.
There has been increasing discussion from officials about opening up more cultural activities, especially in Jeddah.
Deputy Minister of Culture Abdul Aziz Al-Sebail said in an earlier interview with Arab News that the ministry would not object to a literary club or a public library displaying movies that have “a meaningful message.” It was unclear if this means that any film shown publicly would have to be approved by the ministry. Many cafés in Jeddah already show movies via satellite television.
Nevertheless, today’s festival is being run and organized by the private sector away from government cultural organizations, such as the national literary clubs.
Will people flock to the auditorium eager to watch whatever movie available, or will they prefer to stay in the comfort of their homes watching Hollywood movies on satellite channels? Are we ready for public cinema to re-emerge in Saudi society?
These are questions that have yet to be answered.
