Film on extremism wins at Saudi festival

Departures follows a conversation on a plane between a suicide bomber and terminally ill man

Updated 03 Apr, 2017

A short film that tackles extremism has won the top prize at the Saudi Film Festival, organisers said on Sunday, in an ultra-conservative kingdom that continues to ban public cinemas.

Departures, directed by Abdulaziz al-Shalahei, won the golden palm award at the fourth edition of the festival, which featured 58 homegrown films including 12 directed by women.

"The festival is growing as the level of films is improving," its director Ahmed al-Mulla said, adding that several contenders this year addressed extremism.

Also read: Pakistan's banning spree continues as two documentaries axed for 'negative portrayals'

Departures features a conversation on a plane between an extremist thinking of blowing himself up and a terminally ill man who is tempted to commit suicide.

Saudi-based Syrian actor Mohammed al-Qass, who plays the role of the sick man, also won the prize for best actor.

The festival, which concluded late Saturday, included four competitions for fiction films, documentaries, student productions, and unproduced scripts.

The festival was held in a large marquee in Dhahran, in Eastern Province, as public cinemas do not exist in the Islamic kingdom.

"We hope that we will have cinemas soon," Mulla said.

Comments

ABE Apr 03, 2017 02:35pm

If I fund a movie, host the award ceremonies and pay for the cast, director, producer and crew to be my guest in Saudi Arabia too, does it surprise anyone that my movie won?

Recommend

MJ Khan Apr 03, 2017 05:16pm

Ironic

Recommend

ayza Apr 04, 2017 12:19am

Quite ironic to conduct a "film festival" in a closed society country like Saudia where there are no movie theaters to speak of. Yet in most of the Saudi royal's palatial estates, there are plenty of home movie theaters the size of a standard movie theater in most countries. It's only the poor laborers from South Asia and other countries that are deprived of this basic entertainment thanks to Saudia's self-serving despotic leaders. It never occurs to these insular- minded rulers that even in Mecca and Medina the theater owners could show beautifully produced Islamic history films or nature documentaries, etc. In other cities, like Riyadh, Jeddah, etc. standard, reasonably censored films could be shown. After all racy Bollywood and even Western films are shown in KSA with channels like Sony India, HBO, etc.

Recommend