AlUla Creates, the female-only initiative dedicated to nurturing Saudi filmmakers and fashion designers, recently showcased the results of its first cohort at the Red Sea International Film Festival.
It is funded by Film AlUla, the Royal Commission for AlUla's film agency, and is one of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiatives. Dozens applied to take part in the inaugural programme with a handful selected and paired with mentors led by Haifaa Al Mansour (The Perfect Candidate, Wadjda), James Richardson and Jane Moore of Vertigo Films and Roua Almadani of Film AlUla.
Three shorts were created, all of which were screened at the festival in Jeddah. These include Malika, When the Shelves Hymn and the animation A Mosquito.
“We're very excited to be completing the first cycle of AlUla Creates,” said Mahsa Motamedi, marketing director of Film AlUla. “We’re here to nurture and celebrate creativity and empower women in this in this region. I think we've been successful at that by showing how the participants made these short films and we're showing it on an international platform.”
One of the short films, Malika, even competed at the festival. Directed by Maram Taibah, the film takes cues from Alice in Wonderland and Arabian Nights. It tells the story of Salma, a girl who sets out to find her grandmother’s lost crown so that she will be healthy again.
The programme, Taibah said, helped develop the film from as early as the scriptwriting stage. “There were drafts going back and forth with really valuable feedback that helped us to shape our script,” she said, describing how mentors were present at “every stage” of the film to offer guidance.
“I was directing a little girl,” she said. “In some ways, I felt a little bit challenged to get her to be more spontaneous, to get her to give a specific kind of performance. Haifa came to set, and I sat with her and asked her how she recommended I handle the scene. She was very instrumental in what I learned.”
The mentorship programme was also vital in the pre-preparation phase, Farah Jouni, producer of Malika, said. “They gave us a lot of a lot of notes, especially on the budget, on the schedule,” she said. “They were visiting us on set, making sure that everything was fine and everything was on track.”
AlUla Creates was also essential in helping the Malika team develop the visual character and costumes of the film, namely by connecting them to Atelier Hekayat, a fashion house founded by Alia and Abeer Oraif, who were also selected as part of AlUla Creates.
The sisters, along with Arwa Al Ammari of the ArAm label, were the talents selected to take part in the fashion aspect of AlUla Creates. The designers were mentored by Emilia Wickstead, one of the regular dressmakers for Kate, Princess of Wales. As part of AlUla Creates, the designers dressed supermodels Helena Christensen and Eva Herzigova at the Oscar’s Vanity Fair after-party.
While Atelier Hekayat has had years of experience within the fashion industry, AlUla Creates helped them explore a new niche, designing for film, said Alia. “We read the script and we lived it so that we can make designs for it,” she said. “We wanted to communicate the vision of the film. It was extremely exciting.”
Among the most memorable and challenging designs that Atelier Hekayat created for Malika was a handbag that was supposed to fit a sword. “The script said that the character puts a sword in the handbag, Alia added. "How were we supposed to accommodate that? We finally thought of having a zipper at the bottom of the bag so that the sword can pass through."
Al Ammari, who designed the clothes for When the Shelves Hymn, said her experience was also similar, making her think of design in a whole new way. “This was our first experience in creating fashion for a film,” she said. “We took a different path than what we usually do. We had to read the script and understand what they were trying to convey. Clothes can convey feelings.”
As a major part of When the Shelves Hymn, directed by Hanaa Saleh Alfassi, takes place in an antique shop in AlUla, Al Ammari said she wanted to stay true to the visual language of the film. “It had to give this vibe of the authenticity of Saudi Arabia in a historical sense," she added. "For instance, the thawb we designed was inspired by the Saudi thawb, but so was the dagla. We mixed the both and created a hybrid.”
Being an animation, the process for A Mosquito was quite different to the other short films. The film is set in AlUla in 1969 and follows a small mosquito named Zozo that yearns to become a singer and, as the premise reads, “as famous as Umm Kulthum".
The film, directed by sisters Dana and Raneem Almohandes, initially began as a two-minute university project before being picked up by AlUla Creates. “They helped us to develop to seven minutes in terms of story and the characters,” Dana said. “We developed more with the feedback and notes.”
The sisters went to AlUla to draw inspiration from the landscape for their film. “We were so lucky to be in the space,” Raneem added. “It was our third time there, but this time was different. We were thinking about the story while being there, and we actually filmed videos that we animated later on.”
The sisters focused on aspects of the landscape by thinking from the perspective of a mosquito. “We were filming the tiny flowers, everything that is so small to include in the film, because it's Zozo's perspective," she added. "Even during the helicopter ride, we thought this was a bit of what she sees.”
All three films have secured distribution deals, meaning they will soon be accessible to a larger audience. “It is very exciting because that's the idea of AlUla Creates,” said Motamedi. “At the end of the day, the distribution is very important.”
She revealed lessons were learnt from the first batch of AlUla Creates. Subsequent iterations, she said, will focus on fashion designers working on costume design, as opposed to offering a wider fashion platform.
“We started off, and I think the fashion side was the first bit that we launched, and then we got the film submissions done," she added. "So we did it backwards. Now we’re in a better position because we know what worked and what didn't work to concentrate on what we do best, which is filmmaking and costume design.”
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German intelligence warnings
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Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
Difference between fractional ownership and timeshare
Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Fasset%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2019%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mohammad%20Raafi%20Hossain%2C%20Daniel%20Ahmed%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%242.45%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2086%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Pre-series%20B%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Investcorp%2C%20Liberty%20City%20Ventures%2C%20Fatima%20Gobi%20Ventures%2C%20Primal%20Capital%2C%20Wealthwell%20Ventures%2C%20FHS%20Capital%2C%20VN2%20Capital%2C%20local%20family%20offices%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
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- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Cricket World Cup League 2 Fixtures
Saturday March 5, UAE v Oman, ICC Academy (all matches start at 9.30am)
Sunday March 6, Oman v Namibia, ICC Academy
Tuesday March 8, UAE v Namibia, ICC Academy
Wednesday March 9, UAE v Oman, ICC Academy
Friday March 11, Oman v Namibia, Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Saturday March 12, UAE v Namibia, Sharjah Cricket Stadium
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza (captain), Chirag Suri, Muhammad Waseem, CP Rizwan, Vriitya Aravind, Asif Khan, Basil Hameed, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Junaid Siddique, Karthik Meiyappan, Akif Raja, Rahul Bhatia
Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Friday's schedule at the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
GP3 qualifying, 10:15am
Formula 2, practice 11:30am
Formula 1, first practice, 1pm
GP3 qualifying session, 3.10pm
Formula 1 second practice, 5pm
Formula 2 qualifying, 7pm
Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
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What is 'Soft Power'?
Soft power was first mentioned in 1990 by former US Defence Secretary Joseph Nye.
He believed that there were alternative ways of cultivating support from other countries, instead of achieving goals using military strength.
Soft power is, at its root, the ability to convince other states to do what you want without force.
This is traditionally achieved by proving that you share morals and values.
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Men’s:
Mohamed El Shorbagy (EGY)
Ali Farag (EGY)
Simon Rosner (GER)
Tarek Momen (EGY)
Miguel Angel Rodriguez (COL)
Gregory Gaultier (FRA)
Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY)
Nick Matthew (ENG)
Women's:
Nour El Sherbini (EGY)
Raneem El Welily (EGY)
Nour El Tayeb (EGY)
Laura Massaro (ENG)
Joelle King (NZE)
Camille Serme (FRA)
Nouran Gohar (EGY)
Sarah-Jane Perry (ENG)
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Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
The candidates
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Ali Azeem, business leader
Tony Booth, professor of education
Lord Browne, former BP chief executive
Dr Mohamed El-Erian, economist
Professor Wyn Evans, astrophysicist
Dr Mark Mann, scientist
Gina MIller, anti-Brexit campaigner
Lord Smith, former Cabinet minister
Sandi Toksvig, broadcaster
City's slump
L - Juventus, 2-0
D - C Palace, 2-2
W - N Forest, 3-0
L - Liverpool, 2-0
D - Feyenoord, 3-3
L - Tottenham, 4-0
L - Brighton, 2-1
L - Sporting, 4-1
L - Bournemouth, 2-1
L - Tottenham, 2-1
The Two Popes
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce
Four out of five stars
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The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
