Discoveries from Saudi Arabia World Cinema

The story of "The Green Box" which rewards its owner by doubling whatever is placed inside it

a duo in the trio

Drawing on influences from Abbasid astronomer Thābit Ibn Qurra in "On Talismans" and French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of embodiment and the hand, the film brings together a cast of media personalities to shed light on voices from the subaltern [the internet], following a fictional palm reading session taking place in Dubai’s rococo vintage hotels of the Deira district [old town]. Hotels in the region are associated with the privilege of anonymity. Patrons often take solace in occupying this neutral space to perform illicit or secretive conduct: from romantic rendezvous to transactions often too esoteric to be recognized within the structures of commerce today. Characters in the film include TikTok fortune-tellers, female islamic scholars and current US presidential candidate Marriane Williamson -- Williamson's interest in wellness has landed her in unpredictable cyber spaces, where she gained popularity amongst a new generation of e-girls and podcast dwellers.

Through references to gender roles and the female experience, Sara Abu Abdallah's work explores issues of obscurity and value, probing the social and cultural conditions of life in contemporary Saudi Arabia. In her multidisciplinary practice, she creates associations of the poetic and the absurd. Saudi Automobile consists of an installation and a 10-minute looped video that shows Sarah Abu Abdallah painting the shell of a wrecked car with light pink paint, mainly as a gesture of defiance against the monopolisation of the privilege of driving by the men in her home country at the time. She paints the wrecked car like icing a cake, as if beautifying the exterior would fix its disfunctionality. In this exhibition, Abu Abdullah’s pink car is placed outside on the Platform of The Flying Saucer

Bait Al Wurud was intended as commentary on disputes on inheritance. It evolved into a meditation on loss. The 12 minute video, depicts a shadow through a window of a sunset at the artist's grandfather's house. When the video is watched intentionally, the 12 minutes feel perpetual, yet when the viewer is not paying attention, it seems to be fleeting. Alaa wanted to capture both the feeling of longing and dread, manifested through capturing the sunsets shadow on the wall; a phenomena that happens daily in the house, even when no one is around to see it.

Glimpses of Now is a visual and auditory exploration of the cities and people of Saudi Arabia. Mohammad Alfaraj shot the video in a documentary format using a video camera and mobile phone. This is an ongoing project, and the artist has been gathering footage for the film since 2015.

Every morning, Sumayah's father used to enjoy a particular meditative ritual which fascinated her as a child. He would close his eyes and enunciate different fruit names, all while making squeezing motions, as a means to disconnect from the outside world. Guava, orange, pomegranate, kiwi, apple. The same self-soothing refrain can be heard over an immersive ambient soundtrack in Fruits of Meditation, in which the artist tries to encapsulate the essence of her father's daily ritual in two parallel videos. The video on the left, depicts the father in meditation, witnessing the profound connection he forges with fruits and the process of selecting them. The act of choosing the fruit takes on a meditative quality. On the right, the artist attempts to replicate her father's ritual, albeit not fully comprehending its significance as she is still trying to understand the process.

A documentary about the Laylat al-Maazim concert by the Arab artist Muhammad Abdo, which was held in Riyadh at the Muhammad Abdo Arena Theater and organized by Rotana.

An elderly man gets the chance to reunite with his first love after fifty years apart.

Hayat, as a theater actress, dreams of practicing her work with creativity, but she finds herself facing a challenge to break free from the constraints she imposed on herself in a moment of weakness in the face of her fears of societal beliefs and public opinions

When two friends decide to try out something new their lives takes an unexpected turn and panicking is the last thing they need

Abood, a designer who works in a creative advertising agency. One time he wakes up to find himself imprisoned in a difficult situation that affects his career

The biography of Youssef Yassine, the advisor to the founding king, who confronted the Ottomans, the British and the French and lived believing in Arab unity.

Basma Khalifa was born to Sudanse parents in Saudi Arabia and grew up in Northern Ireland. In this documentary she revisits her country of birth to see if she would ever want to move back there.

A musical night in which the fans of the late Talal Maddah are waiting for the largest concert by a group of artists in Riyadh, in honor of the artist's immortal works during his long artistic career.

The young boy Ali seeks the folk singer to record him with his father’s tape recorder. When the singer loses his voice after laryngeal surgery. Ali meets the singer with the last recording of his voice

The story surrounds a young boy called Obaid. He is confronted with a choice to live an easy life in this world or to struggle for reward in the hereafter. The story takes place during the tyrannical rule of King Narsis, who controls his people by encouraging them to worship idols and frightening them with the magic of Cinatas, his evil sorcerer. Cinatas chooses Obaid to be his student, someone who will assist him in his magic. At first, the boy is tempted by dreams of the power and the influence he will wield as the king's next sorcerer. But, soon after he starts to question his priorities. He begins talking to a righteous and a very holy man, who opens his mind to the true meaning of life.

A modern Saudi marriage story. Ahmad and Salma are newlywed, and days after the wedding, Salma experiences a bipolar manic episode following a devastating event. Ahmad is determined to stand by his wife, but the couple finds themselves at a crossroads and unable to talk. Will their marriage withstand its first test?

On the day she imagined would be the most special of her life, a new bride is abandoned by her husband on their wedding night. Her husband was under pressure from his family to hold an exhibition - which, strangely enough, includes a picture of his new wife – that very evening. Taking all the wedding guests with her, she bravely tracks him down at the gallery to seek the answers she deserves.

A documentary about singing-life of the greatest artist in Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Abdu. Edited, written , and directed by: Turki Alharbi.

Fatherhood as seen through the eyes of several Arab fathers coming from different cultural and educational backgrounds.

(Rawabi Al-baha 1981) is the first documentary that spoke about cultural ‏heritage and traditions of Al-Baha southern of Saudi Arabia. it is produced by Mohammed Almadaifi Al-Zahrani, he also came up with the idea of the documentary to preserve Saudi’s legacy , not to mention Hussain Najar’s great voice and remarks in the background. Additionally, it was the saudi Arabia's submission for one of the foriegn film festival.

A series of documentaries that tells the story of Al-Qaida right from the start and shows special footage that have not been shown before.

Traveling in the city of Beirut, a small fire particle finds its way into a middle aged man’s home, where upon its entry, the reality of this man shifts from seemingly-normal, to a never-ending nightmare.

Timid and shy eleven-year-old George from an Arab Christian family suffers from the mockery of classmates over the fact that his body hair began to grow early. At home, the brutal hairy father, in turn, is annoyed that his son is too quiet and almost ready to cry. What should a boy do if he feels that the whole world is against him?

a state that used religion to control the mass. the mass reduced politics to the personal (social and domestic). religious shrines became political. And political figures became the new god. meanwhile, lebanon is collapsing. in this film, we are roaming within the lebanon with three individuals that are living the consequences of a failed state.

The story tells about two friends one of them (Debo) got his father's car and went to the other to take him to having a special day with the 100 EGP. they have In their pockets, they went to the Ps centre to play "FIFA" as they used to but found it closed, so what they gonna do with all of this money?

A young woman and her friends join a car repair shop as “Belia” (colloquial Egyptian for apprentices) to learn the craft from the Ustas (craft headmasters). They explore what this relationship creates as it merges labour with everyday life rhythms to open up a new space for movement.

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Short movie by Jana Adel Alsughayer

"Estidamah" team from Saudi Arabia decides to participate in a yearly solar race in Australia for the first time in 2019. The film shows the team as they race against the clock to build a car from scratch and take it to the finish line.

DESERT MEMORY Director by Ali Aldmjani

Broken roots is a projection of the emotional state of 10-year-old Adham, who feels empty inside – as if he is a lonely black tree in the middle of the desert. He tries to fill this void by drawing and hanging expressive drawings on the walls around him, but there is no one to see the boy's work. And although his room is packed with colorful gift boxes, the only color Adham knows is black. After all, gifts are not what he asks for.

Rare footage of Saad Zaghloul's return from exile in 1923 and the Egyptian reception of him, filmed by Egyptian cinema pioneer Mohamed Bayoumi.

One of the earliest films by one of the pioneers of documentary films in Egypt, Ali Al-Ghazuly.

Perpetual Recurrences is an exercise in programming films. Rather than curating a selection of entire films, this exercise curates a selection of scenes. Though they are montaged, the core of the exercise is to look at recurring patterns in Palestinian cinema and cinema on Palestine. The selected scenes gather around each other to form sequences. They do this dictated by repetitive occurrences be that location, political discourse, mise-en-scene, object and so on. From the classroom, to the militant in an open field delivering a speech with a tree somewhere in sight, to handheld camera shots in tight alleyways of refugee camps, to traveling shots from inside cars moving through streets, checkpoints and landscape, the scenes are plucked out from their heavily politicised filmic contexts, form and content wise. When placed in sequences they are screened to observe the political canopy of the moving image produced in and about Palestine over the past decades. The past era.”

Two tired combatants wait for night to fall, by the Dog River.

With a light-hearted look, an exploration of daily-life situations through four popular childhood games in Egyptian culture that stand the test of time.

The film revolves around the idea of intolerance and how some people want to practice dictatorship by imposing their views on others.

While investigating on an event that profoundly changed the landscape of the Occidental Sahara, the filmmaker was faced with a silent entourage and parents who are haunted by this harsh socio-political history. He consequently focuses his attention on the landscape and plants in order to find elements that could answer and help to reconstruct this amnesia.

Addicted to mechanics, Amine is also addicted to roaring engines. In spite of severe past accidents, he takes to the road – for lack of a racetrack – and gives himself up to a curious camera that conveys with power and grace the unquenchable quest for strong sensations and images, thereby sketching the portrait of a promising and determined young filmmaker.

Moonscape is a short film which takes the form of a music video for a ballad/middle of the road song, performed as a duet between a male and female singer, in Arabic. The song traces the story of a man called Dennis M. Hope, who claimed ownership of the Moon in 1980 and thus founded the Lunar Embassy – a company that sells land on a variety of planets and Moons, and makes a connection between his story and that of the director's – a young Palestinian woman living under the Israeli occupation, longing to end the misery of her people in any way possible.

An introductory trip into the world of philosophy for what it is and why it is.