DUBAI: Saudi comedy “Sattar” will get its UK premiere on Thursday.
The movie will screen in London at the Odeon Covent Garden. The film’s stars Ibrahim Al-Hajjaj and Abdulaziz Alshehri will attend the UK premiere.
The story revolves around Saad, played by Al-Hajjaj, who dreams of becoming a wrestler while battling failures in his professional and love lives. His plans soon go south when an embarrassing video of him wrestling goes viral.
Feeling hopeless, he enlists the help of the eccentric Ali Hogeen, portrayed by Alshehri, the self-proclaimed most-famous wrestling manager in the region. Hogeen introduces him to an underground wrestling network known as “The Pit,” and Pakistani coach Abdul Khaleq, portrayed by the film’s writer, producer and actor Ibrahim Alkhairallah, has Saad join the largest freestyle wrestling tournament in the region.
The movie, made by Telfaz11’s new production house Al-Shimaisi Films, first premiered in the Kingdom on Dec. 22, 2022 at Riyadh Boulevard City’s Muvi Cinema.
The film’s stakeholders collaborated with the Saudi Pro Wrestling society alongside the first Saudi wrestler, Naif Al-Mutairi, to choreograph fight scenes.
The movie first premiered in the Kingdom on Dec. 22, 2022 at Riyadh Boulevard City’s Muvi Cinema. (AN Photo: Abdulrahman Alshalhoub)
Al-Hajjaj lost 15 kg during an intense wrestling boot camp four months prior to filming in preparation for the role.
Al-Hajjaj and Alkhairallah were coached by Al-Mutairi on the performance aspect of entering a ring, hyping up the crowd, and initiating a fight sequence.
“There were so many exciting moments during the shoot but I’m happy that I could learn wrestling. That’s the beauty of the acting industry, that you learn new stuff in every role, so I’m really happy about that,” Al-Hajjaj said in a previous interview with Arab News.
“This movie is really important in the context of the Saudi film industry because it’s a local commercial film and one of our beginner initiatives, and we won’t stop at that. There’ll be many films to come,” he added.
Meanwhile, Alshehri said: “We are a society that loves comedy. We love to laugh and joke around, and that’s our goal with this.”
