Saudi Arabia will be witnessing cinematic history this week with the opening of its first international film festival, the Red Sea Film Festival. But the path to this momentous occasion has been paved with challenges and obstacles on many levels, national and international.

The festival was initially announced at the Cannes film festival in May 2018, at a lavish party which was attended by international and Hollywood movers and shakers. Everybody wanted to be part of the Saudi Arabian golden cinematic revolution, which began with the rise to power of a 30-year-old prince, Mohamad Bin Salman, known as MBS after his father became King in 2015.

In 2016, Bin Salman announced the Saudi 2030 vision, which entailed, among other goals, transforming Saudi Arabia into an international cultural and financial hub. Soon thereafter, cinemas were permitted to open, and within two years, Saudi Arabia’s box office had become the biggest in the Middle East and Africa. Hollywood joined the gold rush with the rest of the world, signing multi-million-dollar contracts with the kingdom’s government.

But the party ended abruptly in October 2018 when Saudi journalist and activist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by the kingdom’s agents at its embassy in Turkey. Hollywood responded by withdrawing its contracts and severing its relationships with the Saudi government.

The first victim of the boycott was the Red Sea International Film Festival, which had been planned to be held in March 2020; however, it took an invisible foe to cancel it altogether – the novel coronavirus.

The festival management turned the cancelation into an opportunity to reorganize in order to face its new challenges. Most importantly, they brought in a new boss, Saudi producer Mohammad Al Turki, who’s known for having produced seven movies in Hollywood, in the hope that he would smooth matters with Tinseltown.

“The events that took place in America last year opened new doors for us,” Turki states, two days before the festival’s opening. “When I went to talk to my friends in Hollywood and they started talking about human rights in Saudi, I said, ‘What about the human rights in Guantanamo, or the racism in your society or the brutality of your police force? Why do you have different standards when it comes to Arab countries? Or Asian countries?’ This is moral hypocrisy.”

He says that some of the people he spoke to were receptive to his argument, and agreed to attend the festival, although he refuses to reveal their names. “Come to the opening night and you will see,” he smiles.

Indeed, several Hollywood studios’ movies, including Focus’s Belfast and Netflix’s The Lost Daughter, will be screened in the Cinematic Wonders category, while MGM’s Cyrano will be opening the festival.

But the festival is not primarily about Hollywood. It will screen 130 movies in several categories from 76 countries from veteran and new filmmakers. And it will be attended by the biggest names in Arab cinema, in addition to some international stars, like French actors Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

The festival’s main focus, however, is on Saudi-nascent cinema. Six Saudi features, three of them by female directors, and 18 Saudi shorts, eight of them by women, will compete in the Saudi Features and Shorts competitions respectively.

This is an incredible achievement for a cinema that didn’t even exist until recently. In 1979, in an attempt to contain the rise of the Salafi Islamists following the Mecca siege by fanatics that cost the government the lives of over 600 security personnel, the Saudi authorities closed all cinemas, as well as firing all women from media jobs, and banned them from taking part in any cultural activities. So, for nearly four decades, Saudis had to cross the border in order to watch movies at their neighbors’ cinemas. Hence, it is no wonder that they are now flocking to their new cinemas.

But unlike the escapism on view at the multiplexes, films at festivals tend to tackle social and political issues that are still considered taboo in the conservative kingdom. “You will be surprised,” Turki promises. “We are aware of the challenges, but our only standard in selecting movies was their artistic merit.” Nonetheless, he expects the guests to respect the country’s traditions and values and refrain from body-revealing fashion choices on the red carpet.

One of the main themes of the festival is the empowerment of women. Saudi director, Haifa Al Mansour, along with other female Arab and international stars such as Tunisian Hend Sabri, and Egyptian Yousra and Layla Oulwi, will be honored and will hold masterclasses about their work and experience in the industry.

Amazingly, women are the pioneers of Saudi cinema. In 2012, Al Mansour’s Wajda was the first Saudi feature film to participate in an international film festival when it competed at the Venice Film Festival; it later became the first Saudi submission for Golden Globe consideration.

Through its Red Sea Fund, the festival will also provide grants worth $15 million to projects in development, production and post-production stages, 11 from Africa, 60 from the Arab world and 27 from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, it will sponsor 28 Saudi filmmakers, over half of them women.

Turki insists, however, that they are also looking beyond Saudi Arabia and the region. “We want to be a global player. We have the capacity to do so and we will do it.”

To achieve these ambitions, Saudi Arabia has to overcome formidable challenges: conservatism from the inside and demands for political reforms from the outside. What difference will the Red Sea Film Festival will make? We will know in ten days’ time.