Organisers of the Red Sea International Film Festival have unveiled the line-up and jury head for next month's annual event in Saudi Arabia.
More than 120 movies from 81 countries are set to screen in the Al Ballad district of Jeddah from December 5 to 14.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee will lead the jury for the features competition, which includes 16 films from the Mena region, Asia and Africa. Lee, who will also participate in the festival's conversation strand, previously visited the festival in 2022.
The festival will open with a screening of The Tale of Daye’s Family by Egyptian director Karim Shenawy. It tells the story of a Nubian albino singer and the adversity he faces on his 1,000-mile journey to audition for The Voice.
Egypt will be a particular focus at this year’s festival, with actor Mona Zaki set to be honoured. She is the star of Flight 404, Egypt's entry to the 2025 Academy Awards.
Shivani Malhotra, managing director of the Red Sea Film Foundation, tells The National: “She’s an icon of Egyptian cinema. It’s the perfect time to be honouring someone like her, because Egyptian cinema is having a moment. Mona represents everybody – she’s revered and loved by the new generation and equally with established filmmakers.”
In addition to receiving the honour and sitting for an in-conversation panel discussion, Zaki also has a classic Egyptian film to screen at the festival. It has been restored by the foundation, with more details to be announced soon.
Multiple films from the country, including the Seeking Haven for Mr Rambo, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, will be shown as well.
Academy Award-winning actor and producer Viola Davis is also set to be honoured. She will also participate in the festival’s Souk film market, which aims to foster and develop both talent and projects.
The closing film will be Better Man from The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey. It is a musical based on the life of British pop star Robbie Williams in which the singer appears as a humanoid chimpanzee.
The Johnny Depp-directed Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness, supported by the festival’s parent body the Red Sea Film Foundation, will screen as part of a special awards night gala.
“What makes this project particularly special for us, in addition to our fruitful partnership with Johnny Depp, is that we had talent from Saudi Arabia working for months in key roles in multiple departments on the film,” says Malhotra. “It was an invaluable experience for them and one we hope to continue with future projects we support.”
In a pre-recorded message played at the press conference, Depp commented on the Red Sea’s efforts to develop young talent in the kingdom, saying: “Red Sea has been generous in terms of what they do for the youth culture of Saudi Arabia and the future of cinema.”
Gala screenings at the festival will include Maria, starring Angelina Jolie as opera singer Maria Callas directed by Pablo Larrain; Monsieur Aznavour directed by Mehdi Idir and starring Tahar Rahim as the French singer; We Live in Time starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield; K-Pops, which charts the rise of contemporary Korean pop music directed by singer Anderson Paak and filmed partially in AlUla, Saudi Arabia; and more.
A number of films that have garnered attention on the festival circuit will also be shown, including Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown, which premiered at Cannes, and Aicha from Tunisian director Mehdi Barsaoui, which was shown at Venice.
More than 50 per cent of the films at the fourth Red Sea festival will be exclusive premieres, according to Mohammed Asseri.
The Red Sea Film Foundation's acting chief executive says the festival has now “secured its status as a trusted sanctuary for filmmakers”.
Mr Asseri says there were more than 2,000 applications from all over the world, “which goes to show just how influential and far-reaching the festival has become in just four years”.
More films and celebrity guests will be announced in the coming weeks, according to organisers.
The foundation has partnered with the Creative Artists Agency talent firm, which is based in Los Angeles, for this year's event.
A version of this story was first published on November 11
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
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The flights
Emirates have direct flights from Dubai to Glasgow from Dh3,115. Alternatively, if you want to see a bit of Edinburgh first, then you can fly there direct with Etihad from Abu Dhabi.
The hotel
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Located in the heart of Mackintosh's Glasgow, the Dakota Deluxe is perhaps the most refined hotel anywhere in the city. Doubles from Dh850
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Events and tours
There are various Mackintosh specific events throughout 2018 – for more details and to see a map of his surviving designs see glasgowmackintosh.com
For walking tours focussing on the Glasgow Style, see the website of the Glasgow School of Art.
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What is a virtual bank?
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority defines it as a bank that delivers services through the internet or other electronic channels instead of physical branches. That means not only facilitating payments but accepting deposits and making loans, just like traditional ones. Other terms used interchangeably include digital or digital-only banks or neobanks. By contrast, so-called digital wallets or e-wallets such as Apple Pay, PayPal or Google Pay usually serve as intermediaries between a consumer’s traditional account or credit card and a merchant, usually via a smartphone or computer.
What’s the draw in Asia?
Hundreds of millions of people under-served by traditional institutions, for one thing. In China, India and elsewhere, digital wallets such as Alipay, WeChat Pay and Paytm have already become ubiquitous, offering millions of people an easy way to store and spend their money via mobile phone. Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are also among the world’s biggest under-banked countries; together they have almost half a billion people.
Is Hong Kong short of banks?
No, but the city is among the most cash-reliant major economies, leaving room for newcomers to disrupt the entrenched industry. Ant Financial, an Alibaba Group Holding affiliate that runs Alipay and MYBank, and Tencent Holdings, the company behind WeBank and WeChat Pay, are among the owners of the eight ventures licensed to create virtual banks in Hong Kong, with operations expected to start as early as the end of the year.
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