The Saudi Film Festival, organized by the Cinema Society in partnership with the King Abdulaziz World Cultural Center “Ithra”, with the support of the Film Authority of the Ministry of Culture, will begin next Thursday evening, for eight days, at the “Ithra” Center in Dhahran, where the festival will complete its tenth session this year. , which comes under the “Science Fiction Cinema” axis.
The new session of the festival comes after ten sessions of cinematic creativity, which were full of programs and film screenings, with about 1,444 participating films, more than 2,000 unexecuted scenarios, and 289 projects in the production market, in addition to 155 cinematic awards, which contributed to supporting filmmakers and advancing their progress. In Saudi cinema.
Opening film
The festival chose the opening film of the tenth session to be “Underground” by Saudi director Abrrahman Sundakji, which is a long documentary film that sheds light on musical talent in the Kingdom and reviews the reality of the local music industry. It is also one of the films participating in the documentary film competition in the tenth session.
The activities of this session include the screening of 67 films, 53 of which will compete for 36 awards. On the sidelines of the events, 10 training workshops will be held, including two workshops dedicated to production market participants and short and long screenplay development laboratories, in addition to seminars on film screenings, production of feature films in Saudi cinema, and the concept of… Saudi film, the poetics and aesthetics of cinema, as well as a “Master Class” symposium on legal dealings in global broadcast platforms, and a number of personalities will be honored.
Encyclopedia of cinema
During the festival, the Cinema Society publishes the “Saudi Encyclopedia of Cinema,” which includes 22 books ranging from cognitive, critical, and translated. Book signing sessions will also be held as one of the activities during the festival days. In addition, the new session includes the “Festival Museum”, where the history of the festival is presented from its founding until the current tenth session, highlighting prominent moments and historical exhibits such as photos, videos, posters, etc.
Movie screenings
The film screening programs in the new session include a group of programmes, namely: Competition Films (a program for screening films nominated to compete for festival awards in film competitions), and Parallel Films (the program displays a selection of films that were not nominated to compete in film competitions, with the aim of supporting filmmakers. rising and maintaining a climate of communication among the largest segment of them).
In addition to science fiction cinema, which is the focus of the tenth session (the program aims to display a group of international short films, in addition to training workshops on the subject of science fiction and fantasy), and finally the children’s program (this program was designed to provide an interactive experience with cinema for children through film screenings and meeting with Saudi movie stars. In addition to taking them on an educational tour of the Ithra Center, presentations of this program will be presented to school students and general children who visit the center).
It is worth noting that the Saudi Film Festival comes as a continuation of the role of the “Ithra” Center in promoting the Saudi film industry and supporting its fields, and ensuring the development of national talents in line with the Kingdom’s efforts and directions in creating a prominent position for cinema in the fields of acting, directing, screenwriting, and related matters in the film industry.
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